


Perfect Little Freaks

by AOrange



Series: Perfect Little Freaks [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Comedy, Family Drama, Friendship, Gen, Pesterlog, Relationship(s), Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:12:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 113,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AOrange/pseuds/AOrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Derse family AU where Roxy Lalonde is Dirk Strider's older sister and due to shenanigans in the '90s, they're attempting to raise both Rose and Dave as Lalondes. </p><p>It works out about as well as you'd expect.</p><p>Act 1: shit lets be parents<br/>Act 2: middle school blows<br/>Act 3: (mostly) teenage shenanigans</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. [A1A1]: you owe me fifty bucks and a case of beer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get beginnings.

**April, 2000.**

In retrospect, he had no idea how the fluorescent lighting hadn't woken him before the kick in the stomach. It wasn't a particularly hard kick but it was enough to rouse him into the world of the living once again, to bring him into a state of consciousness where he was able to ignore the punch to the bicep that followed. He counted to ten before attempting to roll over. 

"I'm in charge and I say that it's time to wake up," came a voice, soft but determined. Did he dare open an eye and give away his only advantage in this situation? If he ignored her long enough, she might think he was still asleep. He hadn't given any sign of being awake. Maybe he could get another few hours in and make it up to her later. He chanced rolling over onto his stomach - a large shift for someone who was supposed to be asleep - and buried his face in a pillow. "Wake up!" The voice was more insistent this time, had risen a pitch or two in the few moments that had passed since the previous request. Just wait, he thought, hold out a little longer and you'll win this. 

Small hands shoved at his shoulder, even their combined effort unable to move his deliberate dead weight. Another minute passed and he felt something shift beside him. There. She never had been one to put up with his bullshit. He slowly worked his arm out from where it was crushed under his chest until it was stretched out along the edge of the pillow. Another moment or two and she'd make an inevitable mistake. A quick swipe down of his arm as she tried to take a step forward and the girl collapsed back onto the mattress with a squeal that would have been loud enough to wake the neighbours, if the neighbours lived less than three miles away. He dragged the blankets up and over her and within seconds she was tucked in beside him, a scowl on her face and nowhere near asleep. 

"What've I told you about sneaking up on me while I'm sleeping, little lady?"

"That you'll always win."

"I'll always win. Now go back to sleep."

"But Uncle Br -"

"Oh hell no, no whining this early."

"It's almost lunchtime!"

"You can't tell time."

"Mom left me in charge and I say it's almost lunchtime."

"You say a lot of stuff, huh?"

He mumbled his last comment into the pillow but finally, if reluctantly, turned his head and cracked open an eye to stare down the little girl and her far too mature arguments about what time it was acceptable for a grown man to sleep until. 

She hadn't tried to kick off the blankets yet but it wouldn't be long before she made an attempt to abscond. If he'd taught her right - and he knew he had - she'd hang around just long enough to figure out his motives. She lay on her back, tucked in nice and tight by his efforts but clearly not happy about it. The scowl was her mother's. He'd hated that scowl when they were kids but on his niece, it was almost charming. It was cute as shit that she thought she'd ever get the upper hand in an argument like this. 

"I _know_ a lot of stuff," she said, the scowl switching almost seamlessly to a smug grin. He seriously regretted teaching her that one. 

"Like what?"

"Like that I'm hungry."

"How hungry?"

"Very hungry."

"Toast hungry or pancakes and bacon hungry?"

He only threw in such a specific second option because now that he was awake, yeah, he was definitely pancakes and bacon hungry. There was incentive to get up. He didn't dare give that away though because if he did, within two days Rose would be throwing herself at him before nine in the morning begging for pancakes and the hell if he'd ever been the kind of guy to say no to pancakes. The kid was going to be a mastermind by the age of twelve at the rate she was going. 

"Shape pancake hungry."

"Shape pancakes, huh? Which shapes?"

"Wizard hats. They taste best," she said after a moment of deliberation. 

"Well scram for ten minutes and go get everything out of the cupboard," he sighed, feigning disinterest. 

Rose scrambled out from under the blankets and jumped down off his bed, switching the ceiling light back off on her way out. _Because you're awake now_ , she shouted back when he asked why. When he rolled over to turn off the alarm, which had been hopefully set for one in the afternoon, he realised that he'd already made the fatal error of underestimating her. 

Certified evil genius by ten was definitely the way to go, he thought with a groan. Then again, that was six years away. She'd probably be working up to Presidential Candidature in that time. 

He left his shades on the bedside table because Rose only ever laughed at him for wearing them in the house, but she was probably still too young to appreciate the inherently cool factor they brought. But the thought of her rolling her eyes at him for being stupid before he'd even had his coffee was enough to make him leave them there, no matter how reluctantly. While he'd thought that far ahead, the Baby One More Time t-shirt got him a worse look than the shades ever had when he walked into the kitchen. 

"Is that Mom's?"

"No way, Britney is the bomb," he said. 

"You like Britney Spears?" 

"Gotta support my fellow artists, Rosie," he added, reaching for the pancake mix on the way to the fridge for milk. "Music is a fickle industry these days, shit hangs on your image rather than your talents and Brit's got herself one hell of an image."

"No one likes you," Rose said, making grabby hands at her uncle. He complied with the request and lifted her up onto the counter. 

"Hella harsh there. I had to go into reprint so some people liked my cd."

"I like it," she said thoughtfully. "But you talk too much."

"I'll think about talking less on the next one," he said. "Hold this."

"Good. You suck."

"Thanks, I'll have to get that printed on the flyers for my next gig, it's a nice endorsement."

"You're welcome. When will Mom be home?"

"Tomorrow, I think. Maybe tonight. Definitely by tomorrow morning because I fly out that afternoon," he said, measuring out what was close enough to the right amount of milk for how much pancake mix he'd thrown into the bowl. "And if your mom isn't back by then, who's gonna drive me to the airport?" 

"You can stay," Rose suggested, reaching over to give the batter a stir while he put the milk away. The spoon stuck to the mixture and dragged the plastic bowl across the countertop, where it balanced precariously on the edge. 

"Jeez, thanks Rosie. But I gotta go and bring sick beats to the people. You know what happens if I don't? People die. People need my music or they die."

"They die?" 

"Hell yeah they do, because they don't know what they're missing. Now go feed Jaspers before he does that thing with the dead birds."

He really hoped that Jaspers hadn't already done the thing with the dead birds, because the thing with the dead birds involved dead birds turning up in the living room, usually wherever anyone had favoured sitting the previous day. He turned on two burners and set out the frying pans, checking his cell phone while he waited for everything to heat up. There was a series of text messages that had come through in the middle of the night - _b home b4 rosie gose 2 bed 2moz feed the c@ + b awake list keys in berlin _, followed a minute later by _*goes *lost xx rox_ \- which he skimmed before throwing the Nokia back down onto the counter to finish charging. __

__Rose returned as he was finishing up the first batch of pancakes, dragging a slightly disgruntled Jaspers with her. She sat down at the table and shifted the cat to her lap, where he stayed, nuzzling her hand until her little fingers started scratching at his head._ _

__"Looks like your mom's gonna be home tonight, kiddo. Should we make her a bitchin' welcome home dinner?"_ _

__"Can we have mac and cheese?"_ _

__"Like fancy mac and cheese?"_ _

__"No, normal mac and cheese."_ _

__"Eh, I don't see why not. My mac and cheese is pretty good."_ _

__Lifting the pan up from the burner, he flipped two pancakes out onto her plate and returned it to the heat. He picked up two slices of bacon, drained them, and added them to Rose's plate as well. With the frying pan already heated and the butter still sizzling, it didn't take long to finish his own batch of pancakes. He flipped them out, added the bacon, and sat down opposite his niece before covering the entire plate in syrup._ _

__"What can we do today?"_ _

__"Shit, Rose, it's like eight in the morning. Slow down. We got all day to hang out, eat your pancakes."_ _

__"No it's not."_ _

__"Yeah it is."_ _

__"No!"_ _

__"Yeah it i - ah shit, fine. Smart ass," he said, conceding when he finally looked up at the clock. It read eleven thirty-eight. "How's about I teach you how to tell time today?"_ _

__She just grinned at her uncle from across the table with a mouthful of pancake and a lap full of cat. It didn't take a genius to work out that she liked the sound of that._ _

____

+++

The shift in his music collection had been so gradual that without him even realising it, all the extra shit he'd downloaded in the last few months for both his sister and Rose was making its way into his own regular playlists. The most concerning part of that was how it was no longer jarring to hear Destiny's Child follow on from Dr. Dre, or N*Sync precede one of his own mixes from '94. So when the pin dropped and he realised he was singing along to _Genie in a Bottle_ , he quickly clicked onto the next song in the library. Beastie Boys. Much more appropriate.

"I like that song."

"Yeah, well it makes Uncle Bro feel stupid, sorry. _Sabotage_ is a classic, appreciate it."

"Nah. What comes next?" Rose brandished the sheet of paper at him from her place on the stool beside him. 

"You tell me."

"I don't know!"

"Yeah you do. Five, six, seven, what?"

"I don't know!"

"Well I ain't telling you again. Figure it out," he said. "You like this?"

Rose scrunched up her nose when he held out the detached marionette head, examining the drying paintjob. 

"It's okay. That eye looks funny." 

"Yeah, well your eye looks funny."

"Phone!" 

The sudden screech made him want to hurl the head at the little girl tearing back through the basement towards the stairs; how she heard the tinkling tune of the cell phone from three rooms away he didn't know, but he followed close behind her and snatched the device back when she made a move to answer the call. 

"Wassup?"

"I'm back in the USA and oh my god did you get my text last night? I was _totally_ not even wasted, like, yeah, I'd been at a business dinner so I'd had like one or five wines but I wasn't _wasted_ , you know? And everyone spoke German because I was in Berlin, right? I mean _of course_ they speak German but they speak English too and honestly I think they speak better English than I do most days, but anyway. That text. I lost my keys somewhere, I _think_ it was -"

"It's your mom," he said, pressing the cell to his chest to drown out their voices. Jesus Christ his sister could talk. They had at least a full minute before she stopped. "She's back Stateside already. Probably be home in a few hours."

"Can I say hi?"

"In a minute, hang on," he said, returning the phone to his ear. 

"Dirk? Dirk! Are you even listening to me?"

"Course. You're almost home, lost your keys in East Berlin -"

"That's not even a thing anymore."

"- be home in like two hours."

"Hi Mom!"

"Tell Rosie I said hello, would you?"

"She says hi."

"Tell her I said that we had pancakes," Rose added, clawing at his leg to try and reach the phone. 

"Tell her when she gets home," he said, then shifted his conversation back to the phone. "When will you even be here?"

"I'm in Chicago now and my flight leaves in forty minutes. Add in the drive home and that's how long I'll be."

"Hey, quit it, kid, I'm telling her. We're making dinner so you'd better not miss it."

"Tell me it's your mac and cheese, that shit is the fucking nectar of the Gods. If it's not I'm kicking you out."

"I ain't saying shit."

"You're the best baby brother a girl could ask for."

"And you threatened to kick me out."

"Never!"

"I'm pretty sure you just did." 

"Nah, would never kick out my mac and cheese dispenser."

"Can't wait to see you either, Rox. Later," he said, pressing the button to end the call. "She'll be here for dinner."

"How long is that from now?"

"You tell me."

"But I can't!"

"Well get back downstairs and finish off those clock sheets I wrote for you."

"Make me," Rose said. As soon as Dirk raised an eyebrow at her, her face fell as she realised the scope of the challenge she'd just issued. She knew enough to know that he wouldn't back down, that he'd take the challenge seriously even though it was issued by a girl who didn't even stand as tall as his hip. She stood frozen in place, trying to work out the best route of escape from the kitchen. The basement stairs weren't an option because that was where he wanted her to go. The stairs going up were too far away, the couch offered no protection, and hiding under the table would be stupid. 

She took half a step back as he leant forwards, only enough to indicate that if she ran, he would definitely give chase. Her foot shifted back further until she was a full step again further away. 

"Want to take it back? I'll give you one freebie."

"No! I mean, yes! No!"

"Make up your mind, little lady. You don't want me to send Cal after you, do you? You know what he's like when he's mad."

"Take back! I take it back!" 

"You ain't scared of Cal, are you?"

"No. I know you'll win." 

"Well my legs are longer than yours, it's inevitable," he said, relaxing his posture. "You want to go work on the time telling anyway?"

"Carry me."

"What are you, three?"

"No I'm four."

"Shit, serious?"

"You had cake!"

"Oh yeah, that was a hell of a birthday cake. Jump up then." 

Rose grinned and clambered up onto Dirk's back when he crouched down. He hooked his arms under her knees and hiked her up into a more comfortable position, ignoring the fact that no matter how many piggy backs he gave, she still had no concept of a chokehold. 

He carried her back down to the basement to and into his workroom, dropping her back onto the bench beside his project. He sat back on his stool and handed her a pencil to keep working. Rose picked up the sheet of paper covered in his hand-drawn clocks and stared at it, elbows resting on her knees and feet swinging in the air, deep in thought. The marionette was coming along too, with Dirk completing the face less than an hour later. The only time either of them looked up from their work was when _Bye Bye Bye_ came up on MacAmp and even then, it was only for long enough to belt out the chorus and insult Roxy's terrible taste in pop music when it was over. 

Three equally embarrassing repeat performances later, Dirk set the amputated puppet limbs down and before Rose could protest he had her slung over a shoulder, the third worksheet of the afternoon fluttering down to the floor so she could pound his back with her fists in a useless and admittedly half-hearted attempt at asking to be put down. 

"Okay," he said, throwing her down on the couch as he passed. "Mac and cheese, huh?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay, what do we need?"

"Mac and cheese!"

"Damn, I know that Rosie, but what do I need to make the mac and cheese?"

"Mac and cheese!" 

"You a broken record or something?"

"No, mac and cheese!"

"You don't want the mac and cheese? But your mom's looking forward to it," he said, trying to look sad. It was an awful game to play with a child, he knew that, but it was too tempting not to run with it once in a while. 

"No, you need mac and you need cheese to make mac and cheese!"

"Shit, why didn't you just say so? You get the mac, I'll get the cheese." 

He wasn't about to ruin the illusion that all it took to make God-tier mac and cheese was the base ingredients themselves. Instead, he grabbed a few other things with the cheese and once the pot of mac was boiling on the stove, he started on the cheese sauce with Rose acting as his mostly competent assistant. Secret ingredients, Rosie, can't tell you or your mom or it's not a secret anymore. She rolled her eyes dramatically and he played the part of the wounded hero, begging her to apologize because his heart couldn't take the rejection, the whole scenario ending in giggles all round and an almost burnt saucepan full of cheesy sauce. The noodles were drained and tossed in, stirred, and the whole mess poured into a baking dish, covered in an unholy amount of extra cheese, and put into a hot oven. 

"C'mon, it needs time now. Made with pure love but the oven's gotta do the rest. Want to play Pokemon Stadium with me, see if we can beat the Prime Cup?"

+++

If it was up to her, and sometimes she felt that it should be, she would have taken the winding highway at more than 45 miles an hour. Sure, it wasn't the safest move in the middle of winter but it was April and the roads had been almost entirely snow free for a whole month and mostly dry for the bulk of that time. It wouldn't be too dangerous for someone who knew the roads to hit 55, maybe even 60 if the weather had been particularly good. But as it was, she was trapped in what felt like the slowest vehicle left on Earth, barely hitting 30 miles around the bends.

Nothing got between Roxy and her baby brother's homemade mac and cheese. Nothing. She was almost entirely certain that if she was attacked by a bear between the company car driving her home and the front door, she'd be more concerned with the crispy top layer of cheesy goodness. Mac first, bear mauling second. Maybe comfort Rose in between because she hated it when her mom and her uncle fought over the last of the crispy edgy pieces. 

But hey, a free ride was a free ride and Dirk knew better than to take that baking dish of golden wonder out of the oven before she was home. 

The hour and a half trip from Watertown dragged on and eventually she asked if they could perhaps speed up a little, since she needed to make it home before her baby girl went to bed, but that excuse only went so far since the sun was still up. She sighed, loudly enough that the driver must have taken pity on her because the car shifted from 38 to a solid 40 miles an hour after her effort. She smiled her brightest smile in thanks. 

When the car pulled into her drive, she insisted on getting her own bag out of the trunk but the driver wouldn't hear of it. 

"Get inside and spend the time with your kid," he said, She smiled that smile again and thanked the driver profusely for his time. She'd left a tip in the car before closing the door behind her. She took her bag and turned toward the house taking the front steps carefully in the dusk light. She took a moment to drop the bag by her feet on the doorstep, clear her throat, and push up the sleeves of her cardigan. 

"Dirk!"

Roxy called her brothers' name as loudly as she could, banging on the door with one hand while the other pressed the doorbell over and over. She repeated the process a few times, screaming for him to open the door and laughing when he feigned a struggle with the lock, snatching up her bag in one arm and Rose in the other after the front door was finally opened. 

"Okay, wow, that trip went forever!"

"Mom, we had pancakes! Now we made mac and cheese!"

"I heard. And I could smell it as soon as I hit the state, you know momma loves her some mac and cheese," Roxy said, pressing kisses to her daughter's forehead as she dumped her travel bag in the doorway and kicked off her heels. "But yeah, that went forever. God, what day is it? It can't be Thursday, can it? I left on Sunday, so Thursday seems right but wow, how is it not next Monday already?" 

"Shitty science field trip then?" Dirk asked, dragging Rose off Roxy so she could unpack her traditional shitty post-conference trip souvenirs. 

"Hell no. Interesting trip and my paper went down about as well as I expected it to, so I've got a lot of follow up work to do to convince the rest of the community that I'm right, but I know I'm right so I just need to convince them. How long until dinner's ready, anyway?"

"Bout ten," Dirk shifted Rose so he was carrying her under one arm back through to the kitchen. Roxy followed, her stocking-covered toes grateful for the decision splash out on the wool carpet.

"I hope you made like six pounds of the stuff because I'm not sharing and you have _no idea_ how hungry I am." 

"I got a vague feeling."

"Mom, I learned time!"

"You what?"

"Uncle Bro teached me times!"

Roxy tilted her head to look at Rose, who was squirming against Dirk's hip, kicking the air and pressing her hands into his thigh in an attempt to break free. She giggled when her mother pulled a face behind his back, indicating that it was meant to be him all grumpy and serious. 

"What times did you learned?"

"One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock, five o'clock…" Rose trailed off, stuck on the next hour. Instead, she pressed her fingers in harder to get the point across, her request to be put down now more of a demand. So as soon as they entered the kitchen he flipped her back upright and sat her down on the countertop. "The next o'clock, too. I don't remember." 

"That's more than you knew when I left, baby girl. Momma's very impressed, telling time is super important," Roxy said, leaning against the counter beside the beaming girl. "You want your gift now or later?"

"Hmm, now," Rose said, even though they all knew the hesitation was a deliberate move. 

Roxy made a big show of flourishing a hand out from behind her back, bringing out a fairytale storybook, an ornately designed from cover showing the more traditional Snow White escaping through the forest. Rose took the book carefully, eyes wide. She ran her fingers over the image on the cover and flipped it over, the golden tint of the page edges catching the light as she did. The back was plain in comparison, a hardcover with the faintest pattern etched into the covering. 

"Now, it's not in English so I can't read you any of the fairytales from that one but this guy I know from the city was on the trip as well and he spends a hell of a lot more time in Europe than I do and could tell me that it's got all your standard fairytales in it like the one you've already got, so you're not missing out on the stories," Roxy explained to her speechless daughter. "You like it?"

"It's so pretty," Rose said quietly, tracing a finger along the outline of Snow White's hair. 

"Where's mine?"

"I didn't think you'd want a book written for little girls," Roxy said. Dirk cocked an eyebrow, waiting for the inevitable. "I got you a doll instead." 

"Aw, shit, Rox, you shouldn't have," he said.

"It's pretty gaudy and horrible, too. You'll love it."

He was already trying to work out how large a glass display case he'd need to construct to house such a passively-aggressive yet perfect gift when she presented him with a small wooden puppet that would in no way stand out from the rest of his collection. 

"Shit," he said, examining the construction of the joints. "Might have a problem though, as sweet as this is."

"Oh my _God_ , don't say it. Dirk, no. If you say it, I will _smother you_ in your sleep. I'll kick you out and you'll have to move back across the country and I don't even _care_ if that means I'll have to pay someone to look after Rosie when I'm away. Do. Not. Say It. No. Bad Dirk, worst brother. _No_ ," Roxy had a finger raised in warning, her eyes narrowed. She knew what was coming, knew there was no way to stop it, but it was at least worth the attempt. If nothing else, she was trying to teach Rose early not to let him get away with his shit, not to encourage his shit, because once he got started the shit just kept flowing. 

"Mom?"

"This is between us, little lady," Dirk said, grinning at Roxy's aggressively-aggressive stance. 

"Say it and I'll lock you outside covered in honey for the bears."

"Kinky," he smirked.

"No," she crossed the kitchen and prodded his chest, pink manicured nail jabbing in for emphasis. He stared down at her, only taller by half a head, straight-faced compared to her pseudo-anger. 

"You know Cal always tries to kill the new arrivals," he whispered dramatically, staring directly into his sister's eyes. 

She didn't hold out much longer after that, a snort of laughter bubbling up from behind the mask of fury. 

"I'm not going to sleep for a week. Puppet massacres by my bed every night after dark. I'll wake up to limbs everywhere. Cal will go mad," he continued. Her lips pressed together in an effort to crush the urge to laugh. "You know what he's like once he's got a taste for stuffing."

"I hate you," she said, hand shifting up to slap him before she retreated, finally letting herself laugh when she turned around. 

"Mom!" 

"It's okay, Rosie, he was being a jerk."

"Oh, okay."

"That simple, huh?" Dirk asked, finally cracking a grin himself at the victory. It wasn't over, he knew that. Nothing was simply over in their family. Everything was fair game forever. 

"Jerks deserve it," Rose said simply. She was still clutching the book to her lap as he pulled the mac and cheese from the oven and set it on the stovetop. 

"But I'm not always a jerk. Do I deserve it pre-emptively? Say your mom knows that tomorrow I'm probably going to be a jerk about something. If she slaps me again now and then I'm a jerk tomorrow, are we even or is she the jerk for slapping me?"

"Huh?"

"No philosophizizing at the dinner table," Roxy interrupted before he could confuse the four year old any further. 

"Why not?"

"Less talk, more mac," she said in response. She helped Rose down off the counter and watched her run through to the living room in order to safely store her new book away from the dangers of melted cheese. "You gonna get out the forks, Rosie?"

"No."

"Okay, let me try again. Get the forks out, Rosie."

"Fine," Rose made an attempt to stomp over to the cutlery drawer, but gave up after the first few steps. It was one thing to try and get the upper hand over one of them, but put her mother and her uncle in the same room and cities could collapse under the weight of their collective bullshit. 

While she set out forks and arranged them neatly - three in total, after a slight shake of the head from her uncle told her that Cal would not be joining them - Roxy filled the water jug and placed glasses all around. It was a boring table, when it came down to it. Just three of the six places set, with forks and glasses and large bowls of macaroni and cheese served, a meal that was favoured more by the two adults than the child. 

Even Roxy remained silent until almost half her bowl of cheesy mess was gone. 

"When do you fly out?"

"Tomorrow at five. Fly into Chicago. I managed to pick up a gig there so it's not a complete waste of a stopover. Got a couple of gigs down the West Coast, Saturday in Portland, then the next weekend is Thursday in San Francisco and Friday Saturday in LA. They're all part of the same tour I got a gig opening for which is pretty sweet. I'll be there the week or two, depending. The guys they got in for the next weekend are pretty unreliable so I might be able to pick up their slack. Then first weekend of May I've got a full three nights booked in NYC so I'll be back in the state. Don't know if I'll be back here between the West and there though. Might be," Dirk explained between mouthfuls of burning cheese. "Gotta make it to the studio before June sometime as well."

"I've got a paper to deliver in Bern in July, be back by then?"

"Yeah, for sure. Anything before that?"

"Day trips for meetings in Seattle. Rosie can come on those, there's no lab work."

"Should we get some kind of calendar?"

"What for?"

"All this travel bullshit?"

"Nah, I'll just keep leaving you notes on the fridge."

"That'll be useful when I'm not here. Cool thought process, Rox." 

"I thought so. Now fill this bowl up because I told you I was starving and you gave me none of the crispy bits."

"Yeah I did, don't start this bullshit with me."

"You did not you crispy mac and cheese bits hog!" 

"You're insane."

"Crispy mac bits!" Roxy exclaimed, brandishing her bowl across the table. Dirk gave her a look - his 'I'm on to you' look - but snatched the bowl from her hands and refilled it with the goopy pasta mixture. Despite the scowl as he slid the dish across at her when he sat back down, there were plenty of crunchy, golden blobs of melted cheese in there. 

Why bother making the worlds' greatest macaroni and cheese if you didn't share the best bits once in a while?

+++

"Uncle Bro?"

"Yeah Rosie?"

"Why are you going away?"

"It's my job, you know that," Dirk said, pulling the seatbelt loose over his chest so he could turn around to look at Rose, latched into her seat in the back of his sisters' minivan. "My sick rhymes and chill beats bring happiness to the people."

"Maybe I should call that magazine from Texas and tell them what a loser you are. They should print that," Roxy butted into the conversation from the driver's seat. 

"As if they'd believe you," he shot back. 

"What's in your carry on?"

"The spirit of hip hop."

"Errr, wrong," she said, making the noise of a tv-show buzzer. "Try again."

"Discman, leftover mac and cheese, gum, and my wallet. All you need."

"And?"

"And nothing." 

"Then why's the bag so big?"

"I don't have a small one."

"Cal's in there!" 

"Thanks, Rose," Dirk said, turning back around and throwing himself against the seat. "You're supposed to be on my side."

"Side?"

"You like me better, remember?"

"No I don't," Rose said. "Bye, Cal."

"Haha, shit, sold out by a four year old. Good girl, Rosie," Roxy grinned into the rearview mirror and Rose giggled in response. "Maybe I should just call up MTV or something all 'oh hey, have you heard of Di-Stri? No? Wow, you're not the only ones! He thinks he's a big shot when all he's done is mix one album that sold what, five hundred copies?"

"That's not as shitty as it sounds."

"Oh, honey, it's shittier than you think it is and even you know that's pretty shitty."

"Are you patronizing me?"

"I'd never."

"What does that mean?"

"It means your mom hates me," Dirk said as he turned around to face his niece a second time. 

"Oh, okay," Rose said, stretching out her legs to press her toes into the back of his seat. 

"It doesn't mean I hate him, it means I think he's being dumb." 

"Then why did you say the big word and not dumb?"

"Because actually calling someone dumb hurts their feelings."

"My feelings are so hurt," Dirk said. 

"What are you gonna do, hug your puppet while you cry yourself to sleep?"

"Maybe I will." 

"I'll add that to the list of shit to tell MTV when you're actually famous," Roxy said with a smirk. 

"You're famous?" Rose asked, suddenly wide eyed. 

"Nah. I just liked to think I am. Anyone can put out a cd these days. The shit you can do with computers is off the fucking charts insane. Soon enough there's gonna be kids with their own mixing equipment in their bedrooms and they'll never even have to leave the house to get themselves a number one single. And I'll be hella jealous of 'em the day that happens. Took me six years to even get someone to give me a chance." 

"Okay, how about we talk about something else until we get there?"

"I spy!" Rose piped up with her suggestion from the back seat. 

"Oh my God, no, not again."

"Why not, Uncle Bro?"

"Fine," he said with a sigh. "I spy, with my little eye…" 

The game carried on for the next forty minutes, until they all got bored with repeating the same answers over and over. There wasn't much outside the car except for the road, woods, the sky, and the occasional bird. It had been redundant after the first three rounds but Rose seemed to enjoy showing off the fact that she knew almost all her letters, even though on her first turn she'd had to ask Roxy what letter 'car' started with. 

They had turned into the airport not long after that and pulled up outside the small terminal building. 

"You guys gonna come in?"

"Rosie?"

"Yeah!"

"How about we hang out with you for fifteen minutes, then you're on your own? I want to get her home before dinnertime," Roxy said, pulling the car back out onto the driveway and moving it across into the carpark. "Fair?"

"Fair," Dirk agreed. He flung open the passengers' side door before the car was even switched off and stepped out into the already cool afternoon breeze. He slammed it shut - which earned him a face from Roxy but whatever, her minivan was lame - and slid open the back door to let Rose free. She jumped down beside him as he slung the large backpack filled with cds and Lil' Cal over his shoulder and only just missed being hit with his suitcase because even at four, Rose was very aware that her uncle leaving meant at least two weeks would go by before he came back again. Once he had the suitcase handle in one hand, she grabbed his other and wouldn't let go until he had to tear her away to go through to the boarding gate. 

She cried a little in the car on the trip home, just for a while. The tears turned into sniffles twenty minutes back down the highway and while Roxy's assurances that he'd only be gone a little while helped, her off-key singing along to the radio only seemed to make things worse. He'd be back in just four short weeks. He'd been away longer than that before.

+++

"Roxy?"

"Dirk! What the hell? Where the fuck have you been?"

"I'll explain. Come outside."

"It's after midnight."

"No fucking shit. Just get out here."

"You're telling me you're in the driveway?"

"Yeah. And we can do this over the phone if you want but it'll be easier if you just haul ass out here." 

"Did you get a tattoo on your face or something? Is that it? Because that's hells of stupid, little brother, I've been telling you that since '85."

"I have absolutely zero tattoos that you don't know about." 

"Dirk."

"Rox. Please." 

" _Fine_ , but you owe me."

"Yeah, we'll see."

Dirk sighed and ended the call, tossing his cellphone down onto the passengers' seat. He glanced over his shoulder at everything in the back and his stomach leaped at the sight. He had about a minute to figure out the best way to phrase the situation, despite having had the past two months to work it out. He'd barely even contacted his sister in that time and he'd been actively ignoring her calls for the last three weeks.

He didn't look up when porch light came on and the front door opened. Roxy stepped out in the pyjamas Rose had picked out for her the previous Christmas, arms folded over her chest and lips pursed, ready to tear right through him for dropping off the radar like that. 

"What the fuck, Dirk," she snapped, leaning down to look in through the open window of his '89 Camry. 

"You owe me fifty bucks and a case of beer."

"I what?"

"Backseat," Dirk said quietly, hoping that if nothing else, she would keep the racket down to anything less than absolute shitfit. He waited, but the shout never came. The silence was almost too much and he turned around in the drivers' seat to look at her for a reaction, any reaction. He'd take anything. 

"Oh my fucking God, you're a felon," she whispered eventually, finally tearing her eyes away from the small, sleeping boy buckled safely into a carseat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I was editing some formatting, the site lagged, deleted my chapter, and everything that went with it, including comments. Lame. But it's all back in order now and the chapters have been renumbered appropriately.


	2. [A1A2]: yeah well hes your brother now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dirk has a proposition for Roxy and Rose meets Dave for the first time.

**June, 2000.**

"I know it's hard to pick out your shitbox car in a crowded parking lot but for fuck's sake, Dirk, you didn't just manage to steal a car and drive it three days across the country with a kid in the back, did you?"

"Two outta three, Rox," Dirk said, getting out of the car and closing the door behind him. He leaned back against the Camry and folded his arms over his chest, matching his sisters' stance.

"Don't even tell me which two."

"Don't even insult my baby."

"Which one?"

"What?"

"Well I'm guessing it's yours because why else would you drive three days across the country with it?"

"I already told you this is my car," Dirk snapped. 

"Fucking hilarious," Roxy retorted. She sighed and turned back to the house with Dirk following a few steps behind. "So are you gonna explain or do I have to fill in the blanks on my own?"

"Fucking hell," he stopped dead in his tracks and turned back to the car, opening the back door to collect the still sleeping child. 

"Real smooth, Dick, leaving the kid in the car like that."

"Look, can we do this inside?"

"I need a drink anyway," Roxy sighed, watching as Dirk adjusted the small weight against his chest, the child stirring in its sleep. 

"You're telling me," he said, following her back into the house. Everything else could wait until morning to be unpacked. He kicked the front door closed behind him and followed Roxy through to the living room, settling down on the couch. When his sister sat on the other end he accepted the bottle she held out, downed three mouthfuls of the beer inside, then returned it for her to put down on the coffee table. Her knuckles were white around the large wine glass she kept for herself. "Surprise," he added quietly. 

"Just cut to the fucking chase, mister." 

"So you remember a few years back when I got completely shitfaced at that party?"

"That's a nice specific and clearly one-off event in the history of your life," Roxy said.

"Look, it was the time I got so wasted I thought that hey, maybe I might like fucking pussy because hey, how would I know I don't if I never tried it?"

"You dressed up as Madonna for Halloween 1987."

"And?"

"And again in 1991."

"What of it?"

"You're a faggot."

"No fucking shit, Rox. I thought you'd be right fucking familiar with the inner workings of the mind of a drunk," Dirk snapped, causing the bundle of limbs to reach up and clutch tightly at his shirt. "I was wasted. I slept with the girl, fucking Hollywood bullshit. It wasn't long after that I started coming up here to help you out. Never really spoke to her again."

"...what's his name?"

"Dave. I think I fucked up and changed it from David on the paperwork when I changed his last name to Strider."

"So you went to fucking Texas, picked up a kid from some bimbo you fucked once, changed his name and moved him across the country?" 

"Three outta four, you suck ass at this game tonight."

"Just keep going," Roxy said. She drained the remaining wine from her glass and picked up the bottle - instead of pouring out another glass, she just lifted the bottle itself for her next mouthful. 

"Once and a half, if you really want to know."

"I don't. Didn't. Still don't but really didn't." 

"Tried again when I was sober. It didn't really go so well." 

"Remember that time I said I really didn't want to hear about your pathetic attempts to fuck a girl? Because I totally do. It was ten fucking seconds ago."

"Not really. CPS picked him up when she was arrested on drug possession and distribution. He was in hospital for almost a week, dehydrated as fuck and half starved. Apparently she remembered who I was and from there all they needed was for the blood test to say that yeah, he's mine, and with a record like that it was sign full custody over to me or put him straight into the system," Dirk explained, running a hand though Dave's cropped hair as he started to wake. "He's three. Birthday a day before Rosie's."

"Did they really need to run the tests? Christ, look at him." 

"I know."

"Not an ounce of that bitch in him," Roxy said, leaning forward slightly to stare as Dave's eyes fluttered open. "Hey, baby," she said, this time more softly. "Can he talk?"

"Yeah, might be a little stunted but he's not much worse than Rose a year ago." 

"Why didn't you call?"

Roxy looked up when Dave buried his head against Dirk's shirt again, fingers twisting into the fabric and holding on as if for his life. Which, she realised, given the circumstances, he probably thought he was. Her brother gave a half-hearted shrug and she watched as he rubbed a hand across the boy's back, comforting and calming what could easily become a panicked tantrum at any minute if they weren't careful. 

"How do you explain a monumental fuck up like that on a cell phone from across the country?"

"You say, 'hey sis I totally fucked a bitch and I knew you wouldn't believe me so here's the proof!" Roxy said. She took another swig from the bottle. 

"Yeah, well if it ever happens again I'll make sure I call you as soon as we finish."

"Hell, even sooner."

"Perfect."

"That's never gonna happen again and we both know it," she added. 

Dirk gave a noncommittal shrug of one shoulder then looked down at Dave, whose fingers were tightly gripping the collar of his shirt. 

"You alright, little man?"

"Sleepy," Dave mumbled into his chest, grasp relaxing slightly when he realised that the man was still there, still alive, still paying attention. 

"It's the middle of the night, dude. No wonder."

"More car?"

"Heh, nah. We're here now and there's no way we're doing a cross country trip like that again until you're older. I couldn't just leave my car in Texas though, not again. She's my favourite member of this here family," Dirk explained, looking down as Dave looked up and giving him an over exaggerated wink. "I've got something of a proposition though," he continued more cautiously, turning back to his sister as she drained the remainder of the bottle. He hoped it hadn't been full to begin with. "Gets you out of the fifty bucks and a case of beer deal."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"If you're trying to up it to two cases because you've got undeniable if completely fucking adorable evidence sitting in your lap, I'm not buying it. We made that deal like ten years ago." 

"Nah, it's not like that. Be his mom."

"What the _fuck_?"  
"We'll do the whole teenage pregancy deal. You know, hide the girl away for eight months and when she pops out the kid claim it's yours and you were so surprised when you got knocked up because you and your husband thought you were too old for that shit to happen accidentally," Dirk went on. 

"So you want me to adopt the kid you just adopted."

"No, fuck filling out more paperwork. Just get him to call you mom and leave it at that." 

"He's already three."

"Give it four months and he'll forget. Give Rose six months and she won't remember that she didn't have a little brother before now." 

"Oh Christ, _Rose_."

"She'll be fine. Look, Rox, I'm not asking you to take him on alone so I can fuck off. I'm asking because I think it'll be better for both of 'em in the long run. I'll tell him when he's eighteen or something, but as a kid he'll be better off with a mom and a weird uncle than a weird dad and an aunt he wished was his mom." 

"How do you know?"

"Kids love having weird uncles."

"No, seriously. _Fuck_ , Dirk. This is a _huge fucking deal_ you're asking here. Like, this is an astronomical decision to make on three quarters of a bottle of wine."

"Look, I'm serious. I know it's big. I know it's right out of left field and yeah, when I got the call from CPS I thought Rose had tattled on me for the one time I accidentally lost her for an hour in the woods, but I'm not dumping him on you."

"You lost Rosie in the woods?"

"I thought I had. Turns out I was lost and she'd been in the house all along."

"Did you see that? I'm swooning over your parenting skills," Roxy said. "Can I think about it?" 

"Yeah. Yeah, think about it," he said. He watched as his sister stood up from her end of the couch and collected both the empty wine bottle and his unfinished beer. When she left for the kitchen he turned his attention back to Dave, who was almost asleep again in his lap. He didn't want to move but he'd been good in the car for almost the entire drive up to New York and would probably be alright with the short walk upstairs. 

"He is super cute though," she said as she leaned on the back of the couch to look over Dirk's shoulder. 

"Where do you think he gets it?"

"You're not super cute. You're bulky and you smell."

"I just drove eighteen hundred miles in three days. Of course I fucking smell."

"It's nice to have you back though," Roxy said, leaning forward a little more to ruffle her brothers' hair, an action that got her a dirty look before she stood up properly and left the living room without giving him the chance to say anything else. Dirk listened to her footsteps retreating over towards the stairs but didn't move, not until he heard her bedroom door close. 

"Still sleepy, kid?"

"Mmhmm," Dave mumbled in what was more an acknowledgement that he'd spoken that a response to the question. Dirk shifted the boy's weight in his arms and stood, following Roxy's path upstairs. He passed the closed doors of his sister and niece on the way to his own bedroom, switching off the lights as he went along. 

He carefully disentangled Dave from his arms and left him alone on the bed long enough to backtrack to the bathroom, strip out of the jeans he'd been wearing for a week and yeah, wow, they did smell so point to Roxy on that one, and switch off the ceiling lights. Just for good measure, he locked the door before he lay down to keep Rose out because the last thing he needed was to explain the situation to a four year old at seven in the morning.

When he reached up to turn off the lamp as well, his arm fell back over Dave's small form, which had found its way back to his chest as was curled up there, breathing steadily onto his bare skin.

It was the right thing to do, wasn't it? To ask his sister to take on the role of mom all over again with a second child that wasn't even hers. He'd decided somewhere near the end of the first day on the road, before he pulled into a motel for the night, that the kid deserved a mom - a competent one - after the shitty introduction he'd had to life. 

If he'd known earlier, what could he have done, anyway? At best he would have had the right to see the kid, to see the crappy situation he was stuck in because no court would give him full custody with the mother still deemed competent. 

He couldn't even remember much about the girl, nothing beyond the conversations they'd had at work or at parties before the incident. He'd know her face if he saw her again, but he didn't know how to connect the memories with what she'd become. It sucked, being told by the CPS officer that if he'd even known about the existence of the kid, he would have had the right to be there for everything. But he hadn't, and he wasn't. He'd been put on the spot when the bloodwork came back just hours later - a rush case to get the kid some options - and it said his name up the top of the page is black ink. 

It was a red pill blue pill situation, with either option having its own consequences. The kid was his, no doubt about it. Take him in or cast him out. Take him in and risk fucking up everything he'd worked for the last few years, or put the kid into the system and hope he never found out who'd made that decision for him. 

It was a no brainer, not really. 

He'd spent the first month in Houston going through court processes to accept full custody after the ruling declared the boy's mother negligent and incompetent. While Dave was still in the hospital having fluids pumped back into his malnourished body, he'd filled out the additional paperwork that erased his old identity and formalised him as the Strider he'd always meant to be. 

He was tiny. It was to be expected, they said, because of his situation. Give him time. He'd been gaining back the lost weight since that first week but still looked far too fragile for a child of almost three and a half. 

"Bo," Dave mumbled, heavy with sleep as he pressed himself even closer. Dirk held him even tighter in response, never intending to let go.

+++

"Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"Mom, Uncle Bro's back but I think his door is broken," Rose said from beside her mothers' bed. 

"What?"

"Uncle Bro's door is broken," she repeated, crawling up onto the mattress beside Roxy's still mostly sleeping form. 

"Broken how?"

"It won't open."

"He probably locked it."

"Why?"

"He didn't get home until very late and probably wants to sleep in," Roxy said, holding up the covers for Rose to settle in beside her. 

"But why?"

"Because he's tired, just like Momma is because he woke her up with a phone call and a proposition."

"Huh?" 

"The grown ups are tired, Rosie. How long has it been sunny for?"

"Umm… a long time. Cartoons finished." 

"Seriously?"

"Uh huh."

"Okay, look, I'm awake, see?" 

"Your hair looks funny," Rose giggled as Roxy sat up, her hair a wreck from sleeping on the curls. 

"Oh no! What should I do?"

"Leave it funny looking."

"Yours isn't much better, hon," Roxy said, running a hand through her daughter's short hair to flatten out the ends. "Okay shit, so it's lunchtime. You've gotta be starving." 

"I had juice," Rose explained, slipping back down off the bed as Roxy followed, cramming her feet into a pair of fluffy pink slippers. "I didn't spill it!"

"Oh, well _done_!" Rose beamed at the encouragement. "Now, back downstairs without being too loud, Uncle Bro needs to catch up on his sleep," Roxy added, shooing Rose towards the staircase. 

"He sleeps a lot. I want to say hi."

"You can soon, he's gotta wake up eventually 'cause if he doesn't he's in a lot of trouble." 

"Why?"

"Because if he doesn't wake up that means he's dead, and if he's dead it means I have to feed his body to the wolves," Roxy said, matter-of-factly, setting out a bowl of cereal for Rose before filling the coffee maker. She filled the pot with enough water for four cups, but the squirming sensation in the pit of her stomach told her to up it to six. There was a bottle of whiskey in the cupboard that she'd probably need in the next hour and it'd be nice to have leftover coffee to fill with a shot or five.

"Ew."

"Ew indeed. Eat your cheerios."

"Why?"

"Oh, don't you start that game with me. You know I'll win." 

"I have Lucky Charms."

"Oh, right. Well then, eat your Lucky Charms," Roxy said as she put the box away and traded it for a mug. She took out a second when she realised that Dirk couldn't possibly be far off waking up and set it down beside the pot, ready for when he appeared. 

"Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we do things?"

"Things? Like what?"

"I dunno, things," Rose said with a shrug. She was busy separating out the marshmallow pieces from her cereal and setting them aside. Sometimes she ate them, most times she gave them to her uncle who would eat the entire bowls' worth of them in a single handful. "Fun things. I'm bored." 

"Let me think of something," Roxy said. 

It was no wonder Rose was bored. It had been over a fortnight since the last work function in California, which meant that for two weeks they had spent almost every day at home, playing video games, drawing, and going on short hikes in the woods behind the house. Plane trips were so much more exciting as a kid, when the boredom didn't kick in and everything was new. But being stuck in your own house, day after day? It got old pretty quick. "How about we go into town later and go shopping? There's a few things we need." 

"Yeah! Can Uncle Bro come too?"

"We'll ask him." 

"Ask him what?" 

"Uncle Bro!" Rose screeched his name, almost upending the bowl of dry cereal as she jumped down off her chair. "Hi! You came back! Hi!" He laughed at her enthusiasm but when he didn't automatically reach down to lift her up, she tilted her head in confusion, looking up at him properly and noticing - for the first time - the small boy sitting on his right hip. "Who's that?"

"That's Dave," Dirk explained, looking down at the boy who was trying to hide in his shoulder following Rose's outburst.

"Who's Dave?"

"He's your brother," Roxy said from the kitchen, after only the slightest hesitation. Dirk raised an eyebrow at her, over the table, and she nodded in response, only slightly. 

There was no taking it back after that, she knew. She couldn't take it back in a few months if their living situation changed, or if anything happened. With that slight tilt of her head in response to an eyebrow wiggle, it was done. 

She had always wanted a boy eventually, after all. 

"I don't have a brother," Rose narrowed her eyebrows at her uncle. 

"Yeah you do."

"No, I don't. What's his other name?"

"Lalonde," Roxy said, getting her answer in before Dirk could say anything else. 

"That's my name." 

"Hell yeah it is, Rosie. Told you he was your brother." 

"But I don't have a brother." 

"Then what's Dave?" 

"I don't know. He's funny looking."

"Yeah, he's got a pretty shitty haircut but it'll grow back."

"Did he get gum stuck in it?"

"Something like that," Dirk agreed, sitting down at the table and moving Dave to his lap. 

"Who that?" 

"He can talk!" Rose exclaimed in surprise, sitting back up beside them. 

"Course he can talk, just not as good as you can yet. He'll learn," Dirk replied. "That's Rose. She's your sister." 

"Sissa?"

"Yep. Hey Rosie, got your marshmallow stockpile sorted out yet?" 

"Here," Rose said, pushing her entire cereal bowl across the table, her eyes never leaving Dave. She watched as Dirk took some of the charms for himself then offered one to Dave, who took it between two fingers. "Why isn't he eating it?"

"I don't think he knows it's food." 

"Mom?"

"Yeah?" 

"I don't like him. Take him back," Rose demanded. 

Dirk only just managed to stifle a snort and covered it up with a cough into his fist. He held out another few charms to Dave who still seemed to have no idea the brightly coloured marshmallow pieces were edible. Roxy sat down opposite Rose and smiled at her, reassuring and kind with only a hint of feigned patience. 

"You can't take brothers back," she explained. 

"Why not?"

"Because I lost the receipt," Dirk said.

"You're dumb."

"Rosie, that hurts. If anyone here is dumb it's Jaspers."

"Jaspers isn't dumb!" 

"See?" Roxy said, "it's not very nice when someone you love gets called dumb." 

"I don't love him, he's dumb and so is Dave." 

"How do you know Dave's dumb? He's hardly said anything."

"If he wasn't dumb he'd talk!" Rose exclaimed. She slipped down off her chair again and made as if she was planning to run off, but stopped when Dave finally reached out one hand, letting go of Dirk's shirt for the first time. 

"Sissa mad," he said, pointing at her. 

"No I'm not!" 

"Yea."

"No!" 

"Bo? Sissa mad." 

"Nah, she just thinks she is, little man. She'll be fine," Dirk reassured him. Rose scowled at them both, eyes narrowed and clearly struggling to find the words to say what she wanted to say. 

"Mom! Make them stop!" 

"Stop what, Rosie?"

"Just stop!" 

They all watched as Rose stormed her way through to the living room and threw herself down on the plush couch, her small form sinking into the half dozen cushions. Jaspers sprinted out of the room at the intrusion on his nap. 

"Well that went better than I thought it would," Roxy said. "I'll take her, you go and fucking shower, you're disgusting. I told you that last night." 

"Yeah and then I went to sleep you spaz. Thought I'd try and get some food into him. Might have to try again later though, doesn't look like he wants the cereal," Dirk said, peeling the half-melted marshmallow charm out of Dave's fist. "Good luck."

"I'll take her into town with me."

"Good idea. We'll use the bathroom downstairs."

"Call me if you need anything picked up," Roxy said. They both stood up from the table and went their separate ways. She went into the living room to try and convince Rose to get dressed for a trip into town, out of the house and away from Dave, while Dirk went upstairs to collect some clean clothes before going back down to the basement.

+++

"Where did Dave really come from?"

Roxy sighed. She'd hoped to get at least a few hours without needing to come up with another story to tell her daughter, but she should have known better. Rose had been questioning things since before she could talk. Her first word had been 'how' and she hadn't stopped using it since. How does this work, how does that work, where does the sun go, where does the moon hide. It was normal for kids to ask questions about the world but they usually asked because it was making conversation - they learnt quickly that questions guaranteed someone would keep talking to them. But when Rose asked, she wanted to know the answer. Her questions were increasingly directed, more purposeful. 

Roxy only hoped that she could come up with a satisfying answer. 

"Well, the same place you did," she said, finally responding. Rose clutched her hand more tightly and attempted to steer her towards the Baskin Robins. 

"Where's that?" 

"The hospital." 

It wasn't even a lie in the end. Dave had come to them via the hospital. Of course there was more to the story than that, but it was all details when it came down to it, details that she was sure her brother was going to work hard to erase from Dave's memory within six months. 

"Oh. Is that where all brothers come from?" 

"Most of 'em. Except mine."

"Where did Uncle Bro come from?"

"No one knows."

"Is that why he's so weird?" 

"That's exactly why he's so weird," Roxy said. "Now, pick your flavour." 

"I can't see, Mom," Rose said. She jumped a few times to try and catch a glimpse of the ice cream tubs behind their glass case before Roxy picked her up and sat her on a hip. "That one!"

"Do you like blackberries?"

"It's purple."

"Do you like purple ice cream?"

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

"The purple one!" 

"Okay, okay, jeez," Roxy said, pressing kisses to Rose's temple while she waited for one of the kids behind the counter to finish up with the previous customers - she only stopped when Rose squealed loudly enough to earn her a look from the elderly man waiting for his ice cream. 

It was always a bad idea to get Rose ice cream at the beginning of a shopping trip, Roxy knew that, but she felt so bad about throwing Dave into the mix without a real lead up that it only seemed fair to spoil her rotten for an afternoon to help ease the transition. For the rest of the trip she clung to Roxy's hand, dragging her from store front to store front. Even though she'd already decided to let Rose take charge, Roxy found it difficult to say no to the kitten that they stopped to play with for almost half an hour. _Jaspers wouldn't like a new kitten_ , she said, _he's far too used to being the only kitty in our house_. She hoped that Rose wouldn't see the parallel between herself and Jaspers. It was cute though. Roxy admitted that much. 

With the sugar high wearing off, Roxy dragged Rose around the grocery store before she had the chance to crash completely. She sat in the cart and helped to stack the heaviest items at the bottom so they didn't crush the lighter ones, nattering away about all sorts of things as they made their lap of the store. 

In the end, they even remembered to pick up the few items Dirk had requested in a text message, even though he'd sent it through when they were already in the queue and had to go back for the handful of products.

"Momma?"

"What is it, Rosie?"

Roxy's eyes snapped up to the rearview mirror when Rose spoke. She hadn't used momma as a title in months and had started to phase it out of her vocabulary more than six months earlier. The sudden switch back raised all kinds of alarm bells, the presence of which Roxy struggled to keep out of her voice when she spoke. 

"Uncle Bro's not gonna leave, is he?"

"Well he's gonna go and work sometimes because he's not gonna get famous if he just spends all his time in the basement."

"But he can come back?"

"Of course he can. He's got his own bedroom, and his own office, and his own piles of crap in every other room of the house, I don't think we could get rid of him if we tried."

"Good."

"Why good?"

"Someone has to teach Dave boy things."

"I don't think that your uncle's really the best candidate in the world for that."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you when you're grown up."

"Oh. Momma?"

"Yeah, hun?"

"Love ya." 

"Love ya too, Rosie."

+++

Even while they were still in Texas, Dirk had realised that Dave was more clingy than Rose had ever been. It was understandable though, when he thought about it for longer than ten seconds. He had been taken from a place where he'd been given what could barely pass for basic love and care and had been thrust at Dirk who talked to him, hugged him, fed him regularly. With his needs covered, Dave had latched on to their provider with a surprisingly strong, literal grip.

They'd stayed in the Houston apartment for six weeks, once Dave had been deemed healthy enough to discharge. The college kid didn't mind, as far as Dirk could tell. It was technically still his lease after all, even though he only lived there erratically. 

It had taken most of that first two weeks for Dave to settle enough to sleep through the night. He slept tucked into the crook of Dirk's arm on the futon, hands always clutching anything he could hold onto. It didn't matter if it was a shirt, a hand, hair - if it was in reach and attached to Dirk it was good enough. The first morning he'd made himself sick after eating too many cheerios on a stomach that wasn't used to the intake and had refused anything other that apple juice for the rest of the day. Dirk had sorted through the few boxes of his belongings CPS had passed on but there wasn't much worth holding onto in the long run. He picked out the better clothes that looked like they'd still fit, offered Dave the few toys which were all rejected, then threw the lot into the dumpster. He took Dave shopping the next day and picked up enough clean new clothes to get them back to New York. 

There were things that Dave did that Rose had never done and even though he'd been assured it would settle in time - _give him a routine _, they'd said, _a solid routine will help_ \- Dirk still worried about what was going on in his tiny little mind. He didn't like going outside. Whether it was the noise or the heat Dirk couldn't tell, but he would make little panicked noises and claw at whatever he'd been holding onto at the time to try and hide his face from the light. He didn't seem to realise that most foods were foods and seemed hesitant to eat almost everything. He had liked Cal though, even though Dirk hadn't let him touch the puppet.__

__So when it came time to convince him that the bathtub in New York performed exactly the same function as the one in Houston, Dave wrapped his arms around Dirk's neck and refused to even look up from his chest._ _

__"Look man, see? It's just bigger. Probably a hell of a lot cleaner and the whole room doesn't smell like a college kids' asscrack, but whatever."_ _

__"No!"_ _

__"Why not?"_ _

__"No!"_ _

__"C'mon, kid, you know more words than that, I've heard 'em."_ _

__"Nope."_ _

__"You know that once I throw you into that tub with its whole three inches of water you're not gonna let me take you back out, don't you?"_ _

__"No!"_ _

__"That is exactly what happens every single time, little man. Now I'm gonna put you down on the floor and when I go to stand up again, you're gonna let go, you hear me?"_ _

__"Nope!"_ _

__"Whatever," Dirk rolled his eyes and shifted so he was holding Dave by the armpits, then swung him out far enough that his hands couldn't reach anything before plopping him down on the floor._ _

__Dave let his legs crumble beneath him and sat in the middle of the bathroom floor, silent, except for the little whimpering noises that went with the universal gesture for 'up!', the grabby hands patting Dirk's knees for emphasis._ _

__"Up!"_ _

__"No."_ _

__"Up!"_ _

__"Nope, it's not so funny when I'm the one saying no, is it?"_ _

__"No! Huh?"_ _

__"Gotcha," Dirk grinned, taking advantage of the distraction he'd caused to pull Dave's shirt up and over his head. "We gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?"_ _

__"No."_ _

__"There's the spirit," he said. He helped Dave to his feet again and after a few more useless exchanges of yes and no, managed to get his pants off and drop him into the bath._ _

__"Bubbles!"_ _

__"Hell yeah there's bubbles. Like, I think it's the kind with that shitty glitter in it that doesn't come off until you have another bath without the bubbles, but who even gives a shit?"_ _

__"Huh?"_ _

__"Never mind, kid. Get your bubble on."_ _

__"Bo stay?"_ _

__"Yeah, I'm not going anywhere," Dirk said. He sat down on the floor beside the tub and Dave shot him a grin - not just a smile, but the first teeth-baring grin he'd seen on the boy's face. He didn't know what he'd done to earn that expression, but he was sure as hell going to do it again._ _

____

+++

It was the slamming of the front door that startled Dirk awake, rousing him from what he thought was a well deserved nap. After he'd managed to bathe both Dave and himself, they'd sat at the kitchen table for over an hour as he tried out different foods to see what might catch his attention. In the end, he accepted that it was still too soon for variety and let Dave get away with a handful of Lucky Charms and some more juice. He'd walked him around the house, introduced him to Jaspers - that hadn't gone well and they hadn't seen the cat since - and had unpacked everything from his car.

At some point Dirk had sat down to try and figure out what he still needed to do. There was no doubt he still had to sort out the spare bedroom so Dave had someone of his own to sleep that night, had to clean up the mess in the kitchen, and should probably sort out which of Rose's old clothes were mostly acceptable for the kid to wear.

It wasn't long after the door slammed, which he'd ignored, that Rose was giggling by his ear and Roxy was taking photos because apparently, him asleep on the couch with Dave passed out on his chest was _too fucking precious not to capture on film, broski_.


	3. [I1]: The Bet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Intermission 1: In which Dirk and Roxy talk shit and make the most useless bet in history.

**December, 1993.**

"Holy shit, Rox, it's fuckin' beautiful."

"Tell me about it. Totally worth paying for the full game."

"Is that a fucking shotgun?"

"Yeah, I've got the rocket launcher too but it feels like overkill for this section, y'know?"

"Yeah."

Dirk sunk down in the armchair he'd dragged across his sisters' dorm room and put his feet up on the edge of her desk. He couldn't think of a situation where a rocket launcher would be too much firepower, but it was only eleven in the morning and he was already four beers in for the day.

"I can't _believe_ you haven't been all over this shit yet," Roxy said. Her right hand left the keyboard for just long enough to knock back a swig of vodka from the bottle, before returning to rest her fingers over the keys she needed.

"I can't believe you forget that not everyone's on a comfortable TA's salary."

"You think if they paid me what I'm worth I'd live in on campus?" Roxy snorted. "I'm totally digging the free dining hall pass they gave me though. Hey, we should totally head over there later and see how many fries we can sneak out."

"I would fucking kill for unlimited free fries."

"You want a shot?"

"Nah, I'll buy it next week. I didn't want the shitty shareware version of what's clearly a life-changing gaming experience."

"You've got no fucking idea, baby brother. And I meant of the booze, you seriously think I'd let you shit all over my save file?"

"Still nah," he said, holding up his beer. "Maybe later. Where's your copy of _Link's Awakening_?"

"I dunno, drawer somewhere. I finished it months ago."

"You bitch, you said you'd post it over when you were done!"

"Shit, dude, I forgot," Roxy laughed. "Man, you are so far behind. No _Zelda_ , no _Doom_ , what the fuck have you been doing since you graduated?"

"Working my ass off in Texas so I can fly home to spend Christmas Eve getting shitfaced with my asshole of a sister."

"You had any gigs lately?"

"Only a few over the summer. Tapes are easier than hiring a DJ," Dirk shrugged. He'd been rummaging through one of the desk drawers to find Roxy's Game Boy and the missing Legend of Zelda cartridge while they spoke. "Shittier, but easier."

"Yeah, whatever. One day you'll be super famous and you'll live in California or some shit with a bunch of kids you bought along the way because let's face it, that's never happening the normal way," Roxy said. Dirk raised an eyebrow but lifted his beer to finish off the can.

"Fuck off, can you even buy kids from places that aren't the black market in the bargain bin beside the kidneys?"

"I dunno. I don't need to know. I can ask around if you want."

"Rox, I'm not gonna steal a kid some day. If I want 'em I'll just have 'em," Dirk said, reaching down beside the desk for another beer.

"You've never fucked a bitch in your life," Roxy laughed. She hit pause and spun her chair around so she could put her feet up on the arm of her brothers' chair. "And I can promise you right now that you never will."

"Hey, unfounded accusation. I've been with more girls than you."

"Oh, honey. No, you haven't," she said with a wink, picking up her vodka again. "But that's totally a story for another day. The point is, you're a raging homo and you're never gonna get past second base with a chick."

"Fuck you," Dirk said, laughing into his beer. "You can't just throw a label on something and expect it to stick forever."

"You're exempt from that rule, bro. If you ever bang a lady, and I mean, if you give her a one hell of a totally hetero fucking, I'll give you fifty bucks and a full case of beer."

"I'm not making a bet on the future possibility that I might decide to one day have sex with a woman."

"Because you know you won't," Roxy said, unscrewing the bottle to take another shot. "C'mon, what's the big deal? You don't have to bet anything in return and I'm never gonna have to pay up. It's the most harmless deal ever."

"Forget it," Dirk said.

"Come on! It'll be fun."

"How is that fun?"

"I don't know, it's Christmas and I'm tipsy and getting nostalgic for the old days."

"Fine. It's a deal. If I ever fuck a girl I'll tell you and you can literally pay me for having sex."

"Awesome! Oh, the only condition is that I want proof."

"Hey, no, you can't say that now. What am I supposed to do, take a Polaroid?"

"Hell yeah you should take a Polaroid. Any kind of proof I guess. Whatever, it'll be way in the future and you'll probably be able to share you memories like in some sci-fi movie or something by then."

"Sure, Rox. Bet's on," Dirk scoffed. He held out his hand and Roxy shook it, sealing the deal on what was probably the safest bet either of them would ever make.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The intermission chapters are all quite short and interspersed throughout the main story. Their purpose is to either explain what would otherwise stay a noodle incident (of which plenty remain unexplained), or to just exist as a moment that happened that wasn't quite related enough to the main plot to get put in a chapter. I think there's about seven or eight all up and they'll be updated on the regular update schedule.


	4. [A1A3]: hello 911?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Roxy goes back to work and Dirk has to call an ambulance out to the woods.

 

**September, 2000.**

"Momma's leaving?"

Roxy thought she was over this. She thought she'd well and truly moved on from the heartwrenching question of her loyalty because Rose was old enough to understand that when she went out on conference trips, she always came back and usually brought gifts. Instead, she was crouched down beside her carry-on in the departures lounge, trying to remember the best way to answer the question set to her so that neither of them ended up in tears.

"Just a few days. She's gotta go and talk about science to old men who refuse to listen to her ideas because they're new and even though they're right, she's still wrong because she's young and doesn't know how real science works," Roxy explained. "That's what they think. One day Momma's gonna have a theory named after her, just you wait and see."

"Yeah, it'll explain how some people are immune to gin."

"Shut the fuck up, Dirk. I'm trying to have a moment here."

"Lame," he said, rolling his eyes from behind his shades. She hated it when he wore them to the airport. They only ever made people stare because he looked like a douchebag, something she hadn't stopped telling him since he'd first picked up a pair years earlier.

"Why?"

"Because it's Momma's job, sweetie. She'll be back in one week. That's seven days. Can you show me seven fingers?"

Dave held up one hand and looked confused at the request. From behind Roxy, Dirk held up an extra two fingers which Dave mimicked when he looked up.

"Seven?"

"Hell yeah, that's seven. That's how many days until Momma gets home. Can you be good while she's gone?"

"I'll be best," Dave said proudly.

"That's what I like to hear," Roxy said, pulling him into a tight hug and littering kisses all over his head. His hair had almost all grown back in the past few months, a shade lighter than even Rose's platinum locks. He giggled and tried to push her away, but when Dirk actually stepped in to pick him up off the ground, he looked back at Roxy hugging Rose and whispering into her ear.

"Momma's not gone?"

"She's not about to disappear, kid. She's gotta get on the plane soon and fly all the way over to Europe to meet up with her Austrian Prince of a boyfriend."

"Still wrong," Roxy said, straightening up and brushing the creases out of her skirt. "I'll call you from Chicago and then when I get to London, if it's not the middle of the night. Anyone want anything special?"

"Nah, surprise us," Dirk said. He slipped a hand over Rose's mouth before she could make any outlandish requests. Dave hadn't understood the question. "Now get on the plane before he realises what getting on the plane actually means."

"Okay, I'll see you all in a week," Roxy said. She smoothed down Rose's hair one last time and pressed a final kiss to Dave's temple, took her laptop bag from Dirk, then took hold of her carry on and joined the queue to get on the plane.

"Wave goodbye," Dirk instructed. They did, and in response Roxy blew kisses then shooed them on, hoping that her brother would take the hint and get the kids out of there before she tried to smuggle them aboard.

With Dave still sitting on a hip and Rose swinging his hand back and forth, Dirk managed to get them back out to the parking lot and strapped into their car seats before the questions started.

Dave didn't quite understand why they'd left Roxy in the strange building, no matter how many times Dirk patiently explained the situation. He tried every possible turn of phrase and gave up when Rose took over. He listened to her from the front seat of the minivan as she tried again. Dave nodded, he noticed in the rearview mirror, as if he had accepted that Roxy wasn't coming home for a week. He said yes and okay and he laughed and that was that. The rest of the trip home went as smoothly as possible, even though the only cd Roxy had left for them in the van was a best of Disney compilation.

When Dirk pushed open the front door to the house, it was Dave who spoke first. Barging through the doorway he stopped dead in the living room when, instead of Roxy responding to his urgent calls, all he got was a hiss from Jaspers.

"Where's Momma?"

"Yo, we just dropped her off at the airport, little dude. Don't tell me you forgot already," Dirk said as he put the car keys away.

"Momma not home?"

"Not for a week, remember?"

"Why?"

"Because she has to work," Rose interjected from the couch. "Just like Uncle Bro did before."

"Hey, not cool. I've been working."

"But you're always home."

"Yeah, to help all of you out," Dirk said. He scooped Dave up and tossed him over his shoulder; Rose did the same with Jaspers and Dave giggled as the cat struggled against her hold.

It was true that he hadn't been out of the house much since he got back to New York but juggling two kids - especially when one was as clingy as Dave - made everything a lot harder. He'd neglected to tell Roxy about the gigs he'd turned down because he didn't want to disappear for four days and leave her with a kid who still occasionally refused to sleep and thought that dino nuggets were the only food his body was designed to eat. He hadn't wanted to leave in case Dave thought he wasn't coming back - it had taken almost a month to get him out of the habit of waiting by the bathroom door every single time he went in there.

Roxy's paper was the first time either of them had been away from the kids for longer than it took to make a grocery run. Admittedly, grocery trips could take up to three hours by the time they drove all the way into Potsdam, fucked around, and silently judged other adults for their screaming brats and apparent distaste for orange soda. She'd put off a few trips into New York City and had requested to join in on conference calls instead so she was still in the house. It was a pain and they both knew they'd need to step back out into the working world soon, but neither wanted to be the first to leave the other alone with Rose and Dave.

This paper was the biggest career move Roxy had put on hold. It had been due for delivery two months earlier but when Rose had managed to scare Dave with stories of the wolverines in the woods, she pulled herself out of the July conference. After that, Dave had fallen back into the habit of sleeping only with an adult nearby and the only difference between that and his first week in New York was that he sometimes chose to curl up beside Roxy in the dark. When it came to planning the run sheet for the September conference, her company had put their foot down and told her to get on the plane or lose funding. She'd felt terrible breaking the news to her family - she'd hoped to have until at least Christmas, after the kids' birthdays.

Dirk had cancelled a trip to Houston despite the fact that after his stint on tour in California back in early April, they'd needed to reprint his EP and he'd been approached for another three magazine articles. Those he'd done over the phone, but the meetings and recording sessions were put on the backburner indefinitely.

"Alright, everyone downstairs," he said, leading the way down to the basement with Rose trailing a few steps behind, Jaspers cradled in her arms. He threw Dave onto the rec room couch and started picking through the VHS tapes stacked on the floor. "Toy Story One or Toy Story Two?"

"Two!"

"Two!"

"Great. We've only seen that one eight hundred times, not two thousand," Dirk said as he put the tape in to rewind.

"We never watched Toy Story that much!"

"Rosie, I had to buy you a new copy because the tape wore out. You watched it plenty of times."

"No I didn't."

"Sorry, little lady, but you did. Now, Uncle Bro's got some work to do and you know I can hear everything you do from next door, right?"

The kids both nodded. Dirk hit play once the tape clicked to signal the rewind was done and ruffled up Dave's hair on the way back past the couch to his study. Between the open door and the fact that noise travelled in the basement, he had to cram on a set of headphones to even half drown out the sounds of Buzz Lightyear fighting his way through Sector 4 of the Gamma Quadrant and _holy shit_ , he thought as he loaded up his Tangerine iMac, _I've seen this movie too many fucking times_.

With the looping samples playing on a low enough volume that he could still hear the muffled voices of the kids in the next room, Dirk made an attempt to actually get some work done. He'd been trying, on and off, to figure out which direction he wanted the next EP to go in but new stuff had taken a backseat to fine tuning the old stuff because it had seemed easier at the time. He clicked uselessly around a few files trying to find the right track because no matter what he tried he couldn't get it to show up on MacAmp.

He could barely hear Rose talking over the music and he pushed one headphone back off his ear just in case he needed to intervene. It wasn't as if the kids were about to tear into each other but they had had a few problems in the first month, mostly on Rose's end. She hadn't taken the introduction of a baby brother too well and had spent the early days telling Dave over and over that he wasn't really her brother; Roxy had stepped in when she mentioned something about feeding him to the wolves because that was what people did when their brothers were jerks. Dirk had needed to finish the conversation because Roxy was laughing too hard at the way Rose had twisted her earlier words to fit her own situation.

But in general, they seemed to get along. Rose was calm and collected most of the time and had always had a handle on her more extreme emotions. At almost five, she had more self control than her mother did some days. She was still snippy when Dave asked too many questions, or demanded more attention than was necessary, but there were no more theatrics than the usual sibling squabbles. It probably helped that Dave still didn't say much unless he was specifically asking for something, but Dirk still wasn't sure how much of that was his personality and how much was him struggling to catch up on the lost developmental stages from his early years.

"How many days is it?"

"For what?"

"How many days a'fore Momma come home?"

"Still seven. It hasn't been any days. It's only been hours, dummy."

"Too long."

"Mom always comes home."

"But why she go?"

"To talk to people about science and get money."

"Why?"

"Because Mom likes science. She's famous to all the science people."

"Wow. Unc'a Bro too?"

"Nah, he's only famous to losers."

"Famous?"

"He made a cd, remember."

"Oh. No, bad chicken Al!"

"You know the end."

"Al's got Woody! Unc'a Bro! He took Woody!"

"It's alright, little dude. Buzz will save him," Dirk called from his study. He made a short annotation in the margins of his draft copy and switched a few words around in the third line. Jesus fucking Christ he was out of practice. He'd even had to pull up reference.com to look for some synonyms to help end his lines - that made him feel more like the loser Rose had described him as being.

"Too late!"

"Keep watching, man. You know they break into the toy store to get him back."

"Oh yeah," Dave said, his voice dropping back below a shout. He reached out to run his fingers through Jaspers' fur when the cat settled down between the two kids. He was still learning to be gentle with the animal and Jaspers was only so patient with him; he'd learnt very quickly that his tail was off limits. "How long now?"

Dirk cracked a grin when he heard Rose sigh dramatically.

+++

Every morning at breakfast, Dave asked how long until Roxy would be home. Every morning, Rose would continue to sigh dramatically as if to prove a point. By the third day, after Dirk had woken to find both kids in his bed, Dave curled up against his chest and Rose behind him with an arm wrapped protectively around her brother, he'd made a calendar they could use to count down the days. That had worked well until Dave realised there were still more days to go than had passed and they had all watched both Toy Story films again until the tears were forgotten.

On the seventh morning Dirk woke to the sounds of giggles and had fought off both of them at once. Despite their surprisingly coordinated attack effort, he'd managed to knock Dave off-balance and have him wrapped up in a blanket in less than a minute, while Rose was more of a challenge because Dave wasn't going down without a fight and needed to be re-wrapped at least three times before Dirk managed to pin Rose as well.

He'd thrown them into the bath together while they were still laughing at him for how long it had taken to win the scuffle.

They'd been hell in the car and through the grocery store and he was almost ready to throttle the pair of them on the drive home. He got it. They were excited because Roxy would be home in time for dinner, but that didn't make them any easier to deal with. It was all screeches and squeals and attempts to jump on the furniture like Jaspers did until Dirk pulled out his best Serious Adult Voice and threatened to feed the cat to a Yeti, along with anyone who tried to imitate him. The jumping had stopped immediately and both Dave and Rose were quiet for a whole five minutes, until they started running up and down the basement stairs.

This time, it was the promise of food that had calmed them down. Dirk slid a plate of pre-cut fruit across the table to the ravenous kids who devoured the chunks like the wild animals they were, leaving their hands and faces sticky with juice.

He was rinsing out the dishcloth to wipe them down when Rose spoke.

"Uncle Bro?"

"Yeah, Rosie?"

"Dave's acting funny."

"He's been acting funny all morning," Dirk rolled his eyes as he turned around. As if Rose was trying to tattle on him for that, she'd been the one to initiate the raid on the rec room earlier.

"No, he's being really weird."

"What's up, little man?"

"Itchy!"

"Huh?"

"Itchy!" Dave repeated while Dirk was wiping Rose's fingers clean. His head snapped up to look at Dave, who was already breaking out in a rash as he tried to scratch at his tongue.

"Jesus, fuck! Rosie, get the phone for me, okay? Bring it here. Go!"

"Okay! You don't have to yell at me!"

"I kind of do right now, Rosie, so hurry up!" Dirk shouted. Rose stared for a moment because he never yelled like that, not at her, but when he turned away from Dave to look back at her she slipped down off her chair and ran through to the living room to collect the phone. "Start dialling 911 for me and bring the phone here, would you?" He picked Dave up and carried him to the counter, swatting his hands away from his mouth. "I know it itches but you gotta stop before you make it worse," he said, sitting him down on the counter with his feet in one side of the sink. He flicked the tap on in the other and rinsed out the cloth and started wiping down his face and hands to remove the excess juice.

"Uncle Bro!" Rose thrust the phone up at him and he snatched it from her, resting the headset between his ear and shoulder. He heard the dial tone and mouthed a thanks at Rose, who was still standing around without really knowing what was happening or what to do.

"Shit, yeah, hi. Look, my kid is having some weird reaction to some fruit, hives on his face and spreading, he doesn't exactly look too good either. Maybe the kiwi? I don't think he's had that before. Three. Almost four. No, we're out in the middle of fucking nowhere and he's trying to claw his tongue out of his mouth and he's wheezing, does that count as severe?" He continued to wipe Dave down as he gave their address, cleaning off as much of the remaining fruit juice as he could. Ten or fifteen minutes, they'd said. He peeled off the boys' shirt as well - it was covered in residue - and threw it down into the corner. Ten minutes. He could hold out that long. He hoped Dave could as well. Fuck, he hoped it didn't get any worse than the still spreading rash and the itching, but Dave had that universal kid-look that meant he didn't quite have the vocabulary to explain that his stomach felt tight and that he could probably hurl at any minute.

Dirk didn't chance moving him from over the sink, just in case.

He just stood with Dave, who had given up on any other method of communication and resorted to crying as the itching only continued to grow, rubbing small reassuring circles onto his back. In between, he was trying to calm Rose down because she seemed to have taken it on herself to tear back and forth from the kitchen to the front door to check for the ambulance. Dirk didn't know where it was coming from but there had to be a depot somewhere nearby. Probably up near the National Park gates, where tourists were always falling down ravines and being bitten by the exotic bugs of New York State.

Ten minutes had passed and Dave was fighting tooth and nail to get a hand free to scratch at his face and chest, in between coughs and tears and struggles to draw in a full breath.

"They're here!" Rose screeched from the hallway.

"Open the door for them, Rosie, good girl. Are you sure it's an ambulance?"

"I can see flashy lights!"

"Okay, open the door and when they come up bring 'em here."

"Okay!" Rose called back, watching as the paramedics climbed down out of their ambulance and headed to the house with a kit. "Hi," she said. "I'm Rose."

"Hi, Rose. You got someone sick in there?"

"Yeah, my brother."

"Was it your dad who called us?"

"Nah, my uncle. I don't think I have a dad."

"Can you take us to your uncle?"

"Yeah, he's in the kitchen with Dave. Dave's gross. More gross than normal. He got all pink and itchy."

"Rose!" Dirk shouted from the kitchen. "Talk later! Get them in here!"

"I'm coming!" Rose called back. "That's my uncle."

"Okay, sweetie, what's his name?"

"Bro."

"Rose!"

"I'm _coming_!"

Dirk gave her a look as she walked back into the kitchen, this time with two paramedics in tow. She sat up at the kitchen table and put her head down on folded arms when he directed her out of the way with just a glare.

"Hi, yeah, so he ate it and I've gone to clean up the mess and then he's covered in this rash," he explained, stepping back just far enough to let the officers do their work.

"Any other allergies?"

"Not that I know of."

"Any reactions to anything?"

"I don't know? I don't think so."

"What about the girl and their mother?"

"Uh," Dirk paused. "Rose, I don't know. She's never reacted to anything. Lactose, some days. Like too much of it or something. Rose, go upstairs for me and get that thing Dave likes, the thing on his bed. Blanket."

"Why?"

"Because he's not wearing a shirt and he's cold."

"Okay," she agreed. He glanced over his shoulder as she left the room, listening as her footsteps thundered up the stairs.

"Alright, so. He's mine, She's my niece. I don't know jack about his actual mother except for the fact I've worked real fucking hard the last few months to get him to forget about her considering the ten year sentence she got for distribution. I get a weird rash from pineapples sometimes but it's nothing like what's happening to him. Last year I used this weird tropical shampoo and got a rash all down my back, you know, where it washed off? And yeah, that includes my a -"

"I'm going to stop you there, Mr. Strider," the paramedic said before he could finish. Dirk glanced over her shoulder to her colleague, who was still with Dave and preparing to give him a shot.

God, that was hard, coping with the look on his face. Dirk knew that Dave knew what shots were and the first round he'd needed back in April hadn't been pleasant - not once the hospital ran tests and found he'd never been immunised. Had Dirk wanted him immunised? Hell yeah, he needed to be if he'd be living up in the woods. So they'd given Dave all the usual shots, for measles, mumps and ruebella, for tetanus, for whooping cough. He'd sat through most of them without too much fuss but when it got to the third or fourth injection he was struggling, and Dirk saw that fear rising in him again.

"Hey, little man, look at me," Dirk said. Dave looked up at him, miserable and wheezing, in between darting his eyes back to the paramedic with the ready syringe. "What's your name?"

"Dave," he sniffled.

"And who am I?"

"Unc'a Bro?"

"Exactly. Ain't no kid that's related to me gonna cry over a little shot. Rosie doesn't cry for shots. You know why? I'm her uncle, that's why. I taught her how to be so awesome and brave that shots never hurt."

"Momma?"

"No way, dude. She's my big sister. Who do you think taught me not to be scared of shots?"

"Momma do that?"

"Yeah, she did. Hey, guess what?"

"What?"

"It's over."

Sure enough, when Dave looked down there was a cotton ball taped to his upper arm and no needle in sight.

"All done?"

"Almost," Dirk said. He could see that there were still a few other things they needed to check so when Rose came back downstairs with Dave's entire comforter in tow, he scooped her up into his lap and sat them down at the table, just waiting for the next instruction.

"Is he okay?" Rose's question was whispered as she tipped her head up to look at Dirk, a hand reaching up to pat his face to make sure she had his attention. "You're scratchy."

"My face was cold so I started growing a beard. And yeah, he's fine. They gave him a shot and I think they're giving him some other medicine as well and he'll be back to normal soon."

"Good."

"Better than good," Dirk added. Dave was still trying to scratch at his face and chest despite the shot and he was getting impatient with all the attention. It sucked, watching him like that. Had it even been the kiwifruit? What else had he sliced up? Apples, but Dave drank juice all the time. There was no way it had been the orange slices because he'd seen Dave devour those even back in Houston. It had to be the kiwi. He was never buying that again, no matter how hilarious the in-store advertising display was. "Hey Davey, you hanging in there alright?"

"I'm best," Dave replied. Dirk ignored the sniffle.

"Yeah you are, little man."

"Mr. Strider?"

"Yeah?"

"Everything we've given him seems to be working but he will need observation for the next few hours. Considering the location it would probably be best for that to happen here rather than driving him to town," one of the paramedics explained.

He could understand that. They lived in the middle of fucking nowhere and it seemed like a terrible idea to drag a kid who'd just had a severe allergic reaction through cars and road trips and emergency rooms.

"Yeah, okay. He's got insurance. Can we move him downstairs to the rec room?"

"In another ten minutes."

"Okay," Dirk said. "Rosie, you want to take the blanket down to the basement and pick a movie to watch?"

"Which movie?"

"Ask Dave which one he wants to watch."

"Dave," Rose started. "Pick a movie."

"Bug Life," Dave said. He only had to think about it for a moment.

"Good choice, man," Dirk interjected before Rose could point out they'd watched that last night. He kissed her head and nudged her forward off his lap and she took the hint, walking off towards the stairs dragging the comforter from Dave's bed. "So, for future reference," he added, turning his attention back to the paramedics. "How severe was the severe reaction?"

"I'd avoid him eating it again in future. Usually in small children a severe initial reaction indicates the possibility of future anaphylaxis."

"Okay, so that's pretty severe, yeah."

+++

"Oh my fucking God!"

Roxy didn't give a second thought to the company driver that she abandoned in the car with her bags. All she saw was the ambulance parked in her driveway and she knew that if he wasn't already dead, she was going to kill her brother.

"Ms. Lalonde?"

"Give me a fucking minute here, there's a goddamn ambulance parked in my fucking driveway," she snapped over her shoulder, almost tripping up the front steps in her haste to get inside. "Dirk! Dirk!"

"Ah, shit," Dirk muttered to himself when he heard her panicked cries. He knew he'd forgotten something.

"Dirk!"

"Basement, Rox! Everyone's fine!"

"Then why the fuck is there a fucking ambulance in the fucking drive?" Roxy stopped dead on the third last step when she saw that everyone did, in fact, look very much alive. "Hi, I'm Roxy, the kids' mother,' she added, switching to her best professional voice when she realised there were two paramedics sitting on the opposite arm of the large L-shaped couch to Dirk and the kids.

Their eyes lit up when they saw her standing there, both immediately trying to wriggle out of Dirk's arms. He held on tight and refused to let either of them leave the couch.

"Momma!"

"Hi Mom!"

"Momma! Hi!"

"Kiwi makes Dave real sick, Mom," Rose explained.

"What?"

"Itchy fruit," Dave added.

"Oh, baby, are you okay?" As Roxy made her way off the bottom step, Dirk finally let go of Rose and watched as she tore across the room to throw herself into her mothers' arms.

"He's okay. He got a shot," Rose said. She tried to break away from Roxy's abnormally tight hug but gave up when she figured that her mother wasn't about to let go any time soon. "Missed you."

"Missed you too, hun," Roxy said. She only let go of Rose when Dave started making impatient, demanding noises from the couch as he struggled against Dirk's power hold.

"Momma!"

"Looks like your uncle isn't about to give you up so easy, baby. You still itchy?"

"No, shot fixed the itchy."

"Well that's a pretty excellent turn of events," Roxy said. "Now that I know you're all _alive_ , I'm going to go explain to my driver why I left him with my bags," she explained. She blew a kiss to Dave and turned to head back upstairs.

Dirk's cell phone beeped in his pocket just seconds later.

_imma fuckn kill u 4 not callin me. just w8 till amblnce leevs_

"Who is it?"

"Just the cell phone company. They think I'm stupid enough to go for a shitty new plan," Dirk said. He didn't know which kid had asked the question. It wasn't just Roxy's shitty taste in chatspeak that had him annoyed.

It was a half hour after _A Bugs Life_ had finished that the paramedics finally packed up and left. They had written an incident report and a referral for when Roxy next took Dave in for a checkup. The boy was dozing, wrapped up in the comforter on Roxy's lap, while Rose had sat herself between her mother and her uncle before falling asleep.

"Why the fuck didn't you call me?"

"Rox, I was kind of in crisis management mode. He couldn't fucking breathe properly, the only person I was about to call was the goddamn ambulance," Dirk hissed back. "If we'd made it to this point here and you weren't home, I would have fucking called. If I'd thought it was a good idea to say 'hey Dave, I know you don't know what's happening and you're fucking terrified but let me just make a phone call', I would have called. But those all seemed like shitty options and yeah, I would have done exactly the same fucking thing if it was Rose. You know why? Because making sure they don't ever fucking choke to death is pretty high on my priority list."

"He's still so small though," Roxy said, more gently this time. She carefully pushed the comforter down from around his face and just watched as he slept, the rash finally gone from his cheeks.

"Yeah," Dirk sighed. "You know I would have called as soon as there was a halfway decent time, right?"

"Yeah, I know. But do you know how fucking terrifying it is to come home to an ambulance in front of your house?"

"Maybe it wouldn't be so fucking terrifying if you hadn't picked a giant fucking mansion in the woods."

"It's called _ambiance_ , you heathen."

"Yeah, you gotta love that ambiance you get from finding wolverine shit in the garden."

"My house is fucking fabulous."

"It's alright," Dirk shrugged. "I fucking hope this shit never happens to Rosie."

"Why?"

"Because I've only had him for four months. I've had her for four years."

"Oh my God, what the fuck did I do to deserve a lame-ass brother like you? Fuck, Dirk, that was so pathetic I wish I'd recorded it or something so I could play it over and over when you're trying to pull your tough guy shit," Roxy laughed.

"Like you're any better. Look at you holding him like that all protective and shit. Kid's gonna grow up running straight home to you any time he gets picked on."

"What, and do exactly the kind of shit you used to do?"

"I never did that."

"You did so."

"Fuckin' liar."

"Exactly, you're a liar."

"Shut up," Dirk grunted. He reached up over Rose's head and pushed Roxy sideways, sending her across the couch, laughing, tightly clutching at the bundle of fabric that held the still-sleeping Dave.

+++

"Dirk."

"Mhhm"

"Dirk," Roxy repeated from her place beside his bed. "Wake up."

"Never."

"I threw the kids into the shower so I've got three minutes to fucking yell at you before they hit the point of too long without supervision."

"Rox, what?"

"Oh my God, I am _not_ raising two babies and a teenager. Wake up!" Roxy snatched the pillow out from under her brothers' head and started hitting him with it, over and over, until he finally relented and emerged from under the covers.

"What? Hey, I'm awake, stop hitting me you fucking spastic!" Dirk exclaimed. He sat up - made sure it looked hella difficult - and pressed the heel of his palm into an eye socket. "Turn the lights down, would you?" He rubbed at his eye, trying to clear the vision, but nothing settled until after Roxy quit her dramatic sighs long enough to switch the lights back off.

"Better?"

"No, you're still here."

"Fucking hilarious. What month is it?"

"I dunno, August?"

"It's almost November."

"Shit. There's still months until Christmas, what's the big deal?"

"Oh, fuck! This'll be Davey's first Christmas! Oh, man, I am going to buy him so much shit. He's gonna get, like, a punch in the face with Christmas spirit!"

"The point, Rox, get to it."

"Oh, yeah. You need to haul ass out to the airport. You've got a flight to Houston in four hours."

"What the fuck?

"Yeah, go back to Texas and be a badass white guy rapper for a while. I'm sick of you just lying around here sulking because we don't appreciate your phat beats," Roxy explained. He could almost see her point when she phrased it like that. Rose always scrunched up her nose when he started and the first time he'd tried to rap nonsense to get Dave to sleep, he'd been met with the most confused look he'd ever seen.

"I can't just up and go on an hours notice," Dirk scowled.

"Yes you can. I did."

"Go to Texas?"

"I went to fucking Europe."

"Yeah, and look what happened while you were gone."

"I won't kill your kid."

"Too soon, Rox."

"No it's not. It's been like six weeks since I got back, he's probably forgotten that kiwifruit is the root of all evil," Roxy said. Dirk knew he didn't have the ability to stop her from dragging his suitcase out from the closet so he settled for the next best thing. He needed to move slowly, quietly, or she'd turn around too soon and ruin everything. He didn't need much time - he hadn't lost much of his hockey speed since high school - but he needed more than a few seconds.

"Can't leave you alone with them both."

"I left you with 'em."

"I live here because you needed someone to dump your kid on while you were out on business trips," Dirk said. His voice remained steady as he moved out of bed and across the floor. He took a few large steps when she dropped the case, using the clatters to cover his footsteps. "It was kind of the deal that I'd have to look after a kid once in a while."

"You never signed up for two," Roxy said. "Do you want your shitty t-shirts?"

"How else will people know I'm a C-grade wannabe?"

"Your personality usually gives it aw - fuck!"

"What is _up_ my favourite fucking sister?"

"Hell no, Dirk. Put the fucking puppet away," Roxy said. It had been well over a decade and he still thought it was the most hilarious thing to thrust Cal in peoples' faces when they least expected it, like some god-awful magic trick that left the victim screaming more often than not.

"Aw _hell_ , lady, Dirk ain't even around now. Just your best fucking friend Cal."

"Don't start that shit with me or I'll set fire to the rest of your collection while you're gone."

"You wouldn't fucking dare," Dirk said. He didn't press the act any further because as much as he doubted that she'd set over two decades of collecting on fire, he'd never exactly tried pissing her off that much. He sat Cal up on his shoulder and folded his arms over his chest - he had to at least try to look defiant.

"You're pathetic. Put a shirt on because I'm kicking you out in forty three minutes."

"And you're an evil bitch."

"Who, me?"

"Yeah you, the fucking hellbeast who's kicking me out of the Babysitters' Club to go and chase the dream. What kind of bitch does that?"

"One who's actually not a bitch at all," Roxy said, throwing him a lopsided wink as she left the room. "Don't forget to pack your doll."

"He's a puppet!"

"Whatever, I've got a bathroom to dry off."

"Serves you right for leaving the kids in there alone for more than ten seconds."

"You're going to Texas whether you like it or not!"

"I hate you!"

He didn't hang around for long after that. Roxy had left the return tickets on his bedside table and he packed them into a carry on bag with his iBook and Cal, and filled the suitcase with half his collection of shitty t-shirts and jeans. He didn't give himself time to think about exactly what he'd be leaving behind, not until his flight landed in Houston that evening.

He didn't call home to say he'd arrived until later again, when he was back in the apartment he'd had since he was a teenager and could look as pathetic as he liked while he talked to the kids down the crackly cell line.

Steve, the college kid he subletted to, didn't ask and just set out a beer for him before disappearing into the humid night.

+++

Two weeks was too long. Dirk had stopped keeping tabs on how many calls he made back to New York when he realised that yeah, he was definitely going to have a painful cell phone bill at the end of the month. It was pretty fucking worth it though, just to hear from Dave and Rose. Six months in and Dave had almost caught up to the average language standard for kids his age. He called when he could around meetings and writing sessions, he took time out of his studio hours to listen to one kid or the other tell him the plot of a movie they'd all seen three hundred times, or to hear them fight over who got to talk to him first, or for longer.

When he landed back in Watertown almost three weeks after arriving in Houston - he'd extended the trip because he was actually making some fucking progress and he almost had everything in place for the next EP - he wasn't quite prepared for what was waiting in the arrivals hall.

When Roxy had come home, she'd walked into the middle of a medical emergency. Her triumphant return had been put on hold for hours until the kids woke up and the paramedics had cleared out and it had been a bit of a mess in general. Dirk's arrival, however, included Rose holding up a sign she'd clearly made all on her own, 'Di-Stri' painted in wobbly pink, glittery letters on the cardboard. He watched as Dave sat perched on Roxy's hip, waving to him with one hand while the other clutched the collar of her shirt tightly, the same way he'd held on to him for months.

He grinned.

Hell, being away was worth it if this was what coming home felt like.

"I win," Roxy said, bumping him with her Dave-free hip on the way back to their cars - clearly she'd forgotten he drove himself out to the airport in the first place.

"Win what?"

"He's slept with me every night for the last three weeks."

 


	5. [I2]: Roxy Flies First Class

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Roxy heads off to work for the first time since Dave arrived.

**September, 2000**

"Excuse me," Roxy slurred as she tried to sit up a little straighter. "But I  _think_  I've forgotten what day it is."

"It's Thursday, ma'am," the stewardess replied with a smile.

"Okay, that's great and all, but what year is it?"

"Two thousand."

"Oh. Already?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Wow, shit," Roxy said, dumbfounded by the revelation. "Could I get another wine? I don't think it'll help with the impending sense of doom but I could really use a nap. I've got kids, see."

"Of course, right away. Would you prefer the white or the red?"

"Whatever's closest, honey," she chuckled. "Oh, _please_  don't tell my babies I laughed. They're so little and _precious_ and they're not gonna realise their Momma's a useless drunk until they're older and then they'll just _hate_ me for it."

"I'll just be a moment, ma'am," the stewardess said before leaving Roxy alone in her pod again.

First class travel was comfortable, if lonely.

She looked out the window, just in case she could see her house as they flew over. She couldn't. They'd probably gone too far north already.

Roxy Lalonde was never a woman to turn down free wine. Or spirits. She wouldn't turn down a beer if it was all that was left, but it was definitely lower on her priorities list. Her company paid for all her flights and if she was important enough to send to Europe first class every time, she probably deserved to take advantage of the complimentary service.

She didn't start sobbing until the people in the plush chairs around her had fallen asleep. It was a difficult thing to keep quiet but her seat had been laid flat and she had a pile of blankets to keep her warm and safe while she cried as quietly as she could.

She pressed the call button for an attendant and requested a washcloth when the plane was an hour away from landing.

The towel came with a look of pity from the stewardess and she couldn't help but blubber at the poor girl about how much she missed them already. It hadn't even been twelve hours since she'd last seen them and she missed them so much that it hurt.

"It was always _so hard_  to leave Rosie in the beginning but she's smart, she's gonna rule the world some day, you know?" Roxy sniffled, wiping mascara stains away with the cloth. "But Davey doesn't know I'm coming back, he just doesn't understand. He's not even mine! My baby boy isn't even my son and he doesn't know it!"

"Is there anything else we can get you, ma'am?" The question was calm and reassuring enough that it reminded her of what she needed to do next.

"Oh, no. You've done enough, honey. I'll take a few of those tiny bottles of vodka if you've got them though, just to tide me over until I get to my hotel," she sniffed. "Just leave them, I might just go clean up a bit, you know?"

+++

When it came to long-haul travel, Roxy Lalonde was nothing if not well-practiced. The flight to London had been long and the extra twenty minutes in the air while they were stuck in a holding pattern above Heathrow had given her a little more time to prepare herself to meet her colleagues.

The entire crew stared in disbelief as she walked up the aisle. With her curls pinned back into place, a full face of makeup, and a fresh pair of stockings, she was an entirely different woman to the one they had all taken care of during the flight.

She thanked them all profusely for their time and efforts, stepping out of the plane as a shining example of a seasoned professional.


	6. [A1A4]: unless your name is george youve got three seconds to get out of that tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which school becomes a thing for the kids.

**August, 2001.**

"It's time to wake up, baby, you know what day today is, huh?" Roxy said. She was sitting on the edge of Dave's bed, the comforter tugged down from over his face so she could stroke his hair back off his face as she spoke. The last thing she needed was for him to wake up on the wrong side of the bed today. They'd quickly learnt that when he was asleep, there was no chance of him waking up until his body had decided he'd slept enough. Things had to change though, now that he had places to be. 

There were two hours before he started kindergarten and Roxy was not going to take any bullshit. She was willing to start off nice and gentle, but he'd been warned the night before that if he tried any shit in the morning there'd be no TV for the week. She felt like it was a lame-ass punishment but it always worked on him. No TV meant no video games with Uncle Bro, something he took as a fate worse than death. 

Rose had started school the previous year and she'd had some initial trouble - no one could quite comprehend the extent of her vocabulary and it had prevented her from really settling in with the other kids for a while. They'd bumped up her reading level and given her more challenging stories and math and started leaving her to complete tasks on her own, because Roxy had threatened to pull out her son before he was even enrolled if they couldn't provide basic differentiation. 

Dave went at his own pace as well but his style was almost at the opposite end of the spectrum to his sister. While she sought out new information and absorbed it like a sponge, he sat back and let the information come to him. If he waited long enough everything he needed seemed to fall into place around him. 

Just when Roxy had worried that he didn't have any clear hobbies, he'd started taking an interest in the dead birds Jaspers brought home. While that had been disgusting after the first incident - she'd forced him to take a forty minute shower - she'd picked up some preserved animals in jars for him on her next trip across the country. He displayed them proudly in his bedroom and looked up all the information he could find on the tiny, shrivelled animals. Was it a slightly morbid hobby for a small child? Probably. But hell, she'd thought, if her baby wanted science he'd get science.

The hardest part of enrolling Dave in school had been the part where they'd actually had to fill in the paperwork to enrol him. Dirk had immediately regretted his offer to do it when he realised that completing the enrolment form with the whole truth would look suspicious, if not a little disturbing. He'd filled out Roxy's details in the 'mother' section first then stopped, because he couldn't list himself as the father without something looking way off about their living situation. 

He'd put the form down and ignored it for almost a week before he went back to it. This was it. Once he filled out this form, the one that enrolled Dave in elementary school, there was no real going back. Sure, they'd spent the last two years convincing the kids he was uncle to both of them, but putting that lie on paper was harder than he'd thought it would be. Did it even matter? Who the hell looked at elementary school enrolments down the track anyway? They could always change it when Dave hit middle school. He'd thought about listing himself anyway and making a note about the truth, but that seemed too difficult. If he did that someone would fuck up and inadvertently tell Dave the truth one day and he'd look like an asshole. 

He'd finally completed the form with Roxy as Dave's mother, Rose his sister, and himself as the emergency contact uncle. Roxy hadn't said anything when she looked at the form and saw the name 'Dave Lalonde' scrawled there in Dirk's godawful handwriting. She'd just kissed him on the cheek and passed the paper on to Rose to submit to administration the next day.

"Go 'way," Dave mumbled into his pillow. 

"Oh no you don't, it's time to get up. You gotta have some breakfast and Uncle Bro's making eggs."

"Why?" 

"Because he's gonna be real bored while you're at school," Roxy explained. "Up you get."

"No."

"Sorry, baby, I didn't hear you."

"I said okay!"

"That's what I thought. If you're not at the table in one whole minute, I might just forget to pick up some more AJ at the grocery store," Roxy said. She heard Dave mumble something behind her but didn't bother responding to it because next to the TV privileges, a house with no apple juice seemed like game over. 

"He's coming. Rosie, you keep your mouth shut," she said when she walked back down into the kitchen. 

"I didn't say anything!"

"You're gonna try and tell him that school is awful."

"No I'm not!"

"And don't tell him that the librarian is a vampire."

"But she is, Mom!"

"I'll throw some wooden stakes into your bag after breakfast," Dirk said as he tipped some scrambled eggs from the pan onto Rose's toast. 

"Thanks!"

"No, Dirk. No."

"What, you don't want to teach her to fight back?"

"The librarian isn't a vampire," Roxy said, lifting Dave up into her lap as he entered the room. "Don't you listen to anything your dumb uncle says. Or anything Rose says."

"Huh?"

"Never mind, baby, just drink your juice."

"Okay, Momma," Dave yawned. 

Dirk handed out plates of eggs and toast to Dave and Roxy and sat down beside Rose with his own breakfast. He'd volunteered to drive them into school before Roxy even had the chance to ask if he wanted to make the trip. 

"You want me to put a head of garlic in your pencil case?"

"Nah, I got one."

"'atta girl," Dirk said. 

"Oh my God, you're not getting her expelled from the first grade."

"Has anyone ever been expelled from the first grade?"

"No one's ever been dumb enough to try staking the librarian on the first day," Roxy said, rolling her eyes. 

"That is exactly the opposite of dumb," Dirk said. He took a large bite of toast and dropped the crust corner back onto his plate. "Hella smart is what it is."

"If she ends up labeled a juvenile delinquent, I'm blaming you."

"Would you call Buffy a delinquent?"

"Were we watching the same show?"

"Whatever. You okay there, man?"

"Yeah. Can I have more juice?" 

"Finish your eggs first," Roxy said, glowering at Dirk over the top of Dave's head. They'd been trying to wean him off the apple juice but it didn't help that Dirk usually caved and poured him a glass for so much as a quivering lip. Roxy could hold out until after the ensuing tantrum and had perfected the art of bribing him to apologise in exchange for the juice. 

She still hadn't figured out of he was losing his shit on purpose just to apologise and get the AJ.

"Why do I have to go to school?"

"So you can get smart and rule the world," Dirk said.

"But why?"

"Because if you don't get smart like me you'll end up like your uncle playing with dolls all day," Roxy said. 

"I think Cal's cool," Dave said. He dropped his fork onto the still half-full plate of breakfast and leant back against Roxy's shoulder. "Don't you like Cal?"

"Cal never liked me, not even when we were kids."

"Is Cal old?"

"Yeah, your uncle's always liked dolls."

"Cal's a puppet."

"You tell her, Dave," Dirk interjected.

"But if Cal's old you have to be old, too."

"Go get dressed for school."

"But are you old, Uncle Bro?"

"I'm older than you, kiddo. Clothes. Now."

"Mom's older than Uncle Bro is."

"Thank you for your input, Rose," Roxy said. "You've got ten minutes to brush your teeth and get dressed. I'll time you." 

"Do we get a prize?"

"You get your juice," Dirk said.

"No fair!"

"Hell yeah that's fair. You're down to nine minutes." 

Roxy grimaced as Dave dug a hand into her side to help push himself off her lap. She pulled Rose in for a kiss to the temple as she passed, rolling her eyes at her mother's actions. She pushed her own plate aside and traded it for Dave's, picking at the leftover scrambled eggs, nudging aside the toast quarter with bite marks to get at the other two remaining quarters. 

"He hardly ate anything."

"He'll be fine."

"Dirk, he had like three bites of toast and a spoonful of eggs."

"Yeah, and he'll go nuts when he realises they give him food at school and come home asking for shitty spaghetti and pudding," Dirk said. He dropped his own fork with a clatter and turned over his shoulder to see if he'd remembered to start the coffee maker. He hadn't. 

"Is that schools or hospitals?"

"Probably the same caterers," he shrugged. Roxy watched as he got up and switched on the coffee pot. "He's fine, Rox. He never eats much."

"He should."

"You gonna come out of your science hole in the basement and force more than three nuggets down his throat for dinner?"

"No way, man. There's a reason I schedule my calls for five," Roxy said. 

Dirk stared at her, daring her to follow up that comment with anything but an apology, but all she did was throw him a wink and nod in the direction of the beeping coffee machine.

+++

"I changed my mind!"

"About what?"

"School! I don't wanna!"

"Too bad, little dude. Everyone's gotta go." 

"Why?"

"That's a hell of a question you can use to bug every teacher with until you're eighteen."

"Huh?"

"Get out of the tree, Dave."

"Never!"

Dirk sighed. As soon as he'd ushered both kids out the front door - after they'd escaped the wrath of Roxy, who insisted on hugs, hair brushings, and photos in the hallway - Dave had scaled the nearest tree with low hanging branches and was sitting about eight feet off the ground. 

"Look, unless your name is George you better haul ass back to ground level in the next ten seconds."

"Or?"

"Or I'll come up there and pummel you."

"You can't fight me in a tree!"

"You wanna bet?"

"Yeah!" 

"Just get down," Dirk sighed. "Sorry, Rosie," he added. 

"He's so _weird_ ," she muttered from her place already strapped into the front passengers' seat of Dirk's Camry. "He even dressed stupid."

"Hey, if he wants to wear the rain boots, he can wear the rain boots." 

"It's not raining."

"You're wearing a hat and it isn't sunny."

"That's different. If I can't wear a hat because it's not sunny, he can't wear sunglasses if it's not sunny," Rose said, hanging out the open window of the car. 

"You know he's supposed to wear 'em outside."

"But why is he wearing the ugly ones?"

"Because I'm not buying him a pair of Wayfarers until he stops breaking the ugly ones." 

"Huh?"

"Just sit tight, Rosie, he's only got another three seconds before I come up there after him," Dirk said. 

"You can't even climb trees!"

"You wanna bet, man?"

"Yeah!"

"Stop being dumb and get down!" Rose spoke from her place still in the car, refusing to move and trying her best to win the good child of the year award. Dave could act like an idiot all he wanted and still get attention for it so she'd started using more convoluted tactics to win her mother's favour, and they usually involved indulging Dave until he got bored with whatever shenanigans he was trying out. But on the first day of school for the year, her first day in the first grade, she wasn't taking any of his stupidity. 

"No, there's vampires and the lunch lady is a werewolf and she sometimes puts the retarded kids into the lunches!"

"Dude, that was a Simpsons episode and Doris used all the kids for lunchmeat, not just the retarded ones. Get out of the tree."

"So they really do use kids to make lunches?!" 

It took all of Dirk's self restraint not to just sigh at the now terrified boy in the tree. How they'd gone from mild defiance to pure horror show in less than a minute he didn't know but he was getting sick of the bullshit and it was just going on seven thirty in the morning. 

"Look, Dave. You've got three seconds to get your feet back down on the ground or I'm coming up there. And you don't want to know what happens when I get in the tree."

"I hope you fall!"

"That's it, three second leeway over," Dirk grunted, reaching for the lowest branch. He swung a leg up and over, balanced himself, then stood up. With his weight leaning forward against another branch and one arm holding on, he reached up with the other and wrapped it around Dave's waist to drag him, kicking and whining, down and out of the tree. He slung him over his shoulder so he could use both hands to safely reach the ground again.

"Let me go!" 

"Sorry kiddo, you lost bodily autonomy when you decided to be an ass," Dirk said. 

"Can we go now?"

"Yeah, we're coming," he said to Rose. It took a little maneuvering to get Dave from his shoulder and strapped into the back seat of the car without tearing his arms off because he wouldn't let go, but another empty threat seemed to do the trick. He picked up Dave's school bag, threw it across him to the other side of the back seat, and finally jerked open the drivers' side door. "Everyone got everything?"

"No, Momma's still got my -"

"Too late," Dirk said. He turned the engine over and pulled out of the drive before Dave could finish whatever lie he was trying to get away with. "Okay, Rosie, what're the school rules? I think it's about time we bring Dave up to speed."

"Don't hit people because you always get into trouble even if you didn't start it, do everything because you can't say you hate things unless you've really tried them, and say thank you to the janitors," Rose recited. 

"What are janitors?"

"They clean the school when everyone goes home."

"But if we're at home when they're working how do we say thank you?"

"You figure it out, dude, I'm not giving you all the answers," Dirk said. He glanced up at the rear view mirror and grinned at Dave. The boy just scowled in response. 

"School is stupid."

"Hey, did you not just hear rule number two? Don't knock it until you've tried it."

"I don't wanna," Dave pouted. 

"And I don't wanna hear any more of your shit," Dirk snapped. Dave just stared at him in the mirror, unable to fully comprehend what had caused the sudden sharp tone. Dirk watched as he opened his mouth to say something else, but when he made the effort to turn around and glare at the boy over his shoulder, he seemed to think the better of that decision. The rest of the trip into town was quiet, only disturbed by Rose asking if she could change the cd. Dirk just stared her down until she yelled at him for not paying attention to the road.

When he parked the car outside the school, Rose absconded before he could even say goodbye. Whether she just didn't want to be seen with him on the first day or she had a sixth sense for when shit was about to hit the fan, he didn't know, but it was probably for the best he saw her pixie cut disappearing through the front gates before he even had Dave out of the car. 

"Dude, what's your damage?"

"I told you, I don't wanna go."

"You don't exactly get a say in this one. The President says you gotta go to school, so you gotta go to school."

"But why?"

"Because if you don't you'll end up like the President."

"Huh?"

"Just be thankful you're getting a New York state education, kid. Outta the car now." Dave sighed and finally unbuckled his seatbelt. Dirk stepped aside to let him out of the car, but when he ducked forward to pick up the school bag from the floor, Dave climbed up the inside of the door and threw himself onto his uncles' back. "So not cool, man."

"Don't care," Dave said. He just wrapped his arms and legs as tightly around Dirk as he could because there was no way he was going down without a fight. 

"Do you want the other kids to laugh at you?"

"There's a girl crying over there."

"Yeah, well, don't laugh at her later," Dirk said. He kicked the back door closed and locked the car because it was obvious he wasn't getting out of this any time soon. He'd hoped it would be easy - drive up, drop them off, have his shitty fatherly moment of pride in the car on the way back home. Instead, he was standing outside the school, Rose long gone and Dave hanging off his back like a terrified capuchin monkey. 

"What if it's hard?"

"It's supposed to be hard, that's how you know you're learning new shit. You know your letters and numbers already, you'll kick ass," Dirk said. 

"I don't know anyone," Dave said quietly. He only held on more tightly than before when Dirk hoisted him up into a proper piggyback and started walking towards the building. 

He was far from the only adult walking into the school but he was the only one with a kid actually attached to his person. He went in through the front doors and followed the crowd down the hall. He knew where the kindergarten room was, he'd picked Rose up sick a few times in the previous year and he'd been in to the parent teacher conferences with Roxy, mostly for shits and giggles.

He stepped inside the room with the gaudy name plate on the door and looked around for somewhere to set Dave down. It didn't quite work out the way he'd hoped since Dave scrambled up and over his shoulder and had to be flipped upright from there. 

"Dave."

"Yeah?" 

"I promise no one will eat you for lunch."

"But what if they try to?!"

"You go find Rosie and ask her for some garlic."

"But that's only good for vampires!" Dave exclaimed. 

"Look," Dirk said, crouching down in front of the boy before he let his imagination run too far and ended up in hysterics. "There aren't any vampires here. If there were, they'd have to teach night school. See your teacher over there? She looks nice. Does she look like a vampire?"

"No, but -"

"Hey, no. You said no, you don't get to keep talking. You'll be fine. You'll make friends, do some colouring, eat lunch, and then your mom will be here."

"You don't have any friends."

"Dude, Cal is my absolute best friend ever. I've got other friends that live in other states."

"Did you meet them in kindergarten?"

"Nah, I met them in college. But you won't get to college if you can't even go to your first day of kindergarten."

"Can you stay?"

"Nah, they kick out the grown ups. School's just for kids."

"Please stay," Dave said. He threw himself at Dirk again, hugging his neck tightly. It almost threw Dirk off-balance but he recovered well enough to return the hug, one hand running up into Dave's hair to ruffle it around. 

"Not allowed, kiddo. Wish I could. Anyway, I gotta go home and get some work done."

"Please? I won't climb the tree tomorrow!"

"You're killing me, little man," Dirk said, the words catching a little in his throat. He quickly kissed Dave's temple then forced him back out of the hug. "Hey, don't leave me hanging," he said, holding out a closed fist. Dave matched the gesture and rapped his knuckles against his uncles', making one last-ditch attempt to grab Dirk's shoulders as he stood up. He missed. "Quick, man up. Your teacher's coming." 

"Hi! I'm Mrs. Simmons, who might you be?"

"Dave," Dave said. Dirk noticed his attempt to stand up a little straighter and brush his hair out from behind his glasses. 

"Lalonde," Dirk added as he shook the hand Mrs. Simmons offered. "You had his sister last year."

"Right, you're her uncle. We met a few times."

"Dirk Strider, yeah. His uncle as well. My sister couldn't make it this morning." 

"Isn't that a shame? You're not upset that your mom couldn't make it, are you, Dave?"

"Nah. Can Uncle Bro stay?"

"Oh, no, I'm sorry. If we let grown ups into kindergarten it wouldn't make it very fair for you kids now, would it?"

"You're a grown up," Dave said. 

"Well yes I am, but who'd teach you if we didn't let one grown up in?"

"I dunno," Dave shrugged. "The web?" 

"That's very creative of you, Dave," Mrs. Simmons said with a laugh. "How about you go over there and have a look at our classroom computer if that's what you're interested in?"

Dave looked up over his shoulder at Dirk who gave him a curt nod in response. He hesitated for a moment, but finally stepped forward and slowly stalked towards the computer by the window. Luckily it wasn't a window that looked out onto the parking lot. 

"He'll be fine."

"Yeah, I know. Look, I don't know what's been passed on from his medical report but he's gotta wear those glasses outdoors or in bright lights. They're just regular tinted lenses so if he breaks 'em just any sunglasses will do. We try and get him to take 'em off inside but he's pretty good at judging if it's too bright before he gets a headache," Dirk said. He watched as Dave sat up on the chair and started clicking around the interface, looking for familiar programs. He pulled up Minesweeper and started with the corners. 

"And he's got an epipen in case of contact with kiwifruit. I read all my student files very carefully before the commencement of the school year, Mr. Strider. Your nephew will be fine." 

"I'd be more worried about your computer. I'm gonna leave now while he's distracted," Dirk said. He gestured to the corner of the room where Dave was busy in Control Panel changing whatever he could before anyone stopped him. 

As he ducked out of the classroom he heard the kindergarten teachers' low heels hurriedly clicking across the linoleum to salvage the remaining computer settings. He could only hope Dave managed to hold off until at least recess before he got himself thrown in a time-out.

+++

"Roxy!"

"What?"

"Get your ass up here!"

"Why?"

"There's liquor!"

"Gimme thirty seconds!" There was an offer she couldn't refuse. She hit save twice on her paper because there was no way in hell she was losing the last thousand words, especially not since she got the feeling that she'd actually hit on something important for a change. After a third save, just in case, she pushed her chair out from her desk and started back upstairs from her office in the basement. "Holy shit, you weren't lying about the liquor." 

"You thought I was fucking around?"

"I hoped you weren't," Roxy said. She dropped down onto the opposite couch from the one her brother was sitting on and waited for him to pour out the drinks. "Nothing like a neat whiskey at nine thirty in the morning," she added. Dirk handed her a coffee mug. "I see you've taken the classy as fuck route on this one."

"Just drink your mug of hard liquor." 

"So what's up with the early morning pity party?"

"Did Rose do the face last year?" 

She raised an eyebrow as he knocked back a mouthful of whiskey after the question. She stood up and folded her legs under her as she sat back on the cushion before starting on her own mug which was almost half full, _holy shit, Dirk_. 

"What face?"

"The 'why the fuck are you leaving me here alone' face."

"Are you fucking kidding me? She couldn't get rid of me fast enough. Did he cry?"

"Not quite."

"Oh my God, did you cry?"

"No."

"You did!" 

"No, I didn't."

"You cried the whole drive back, didn't you?"

"I didn't fucking cry, Rox," Dirk said, downing another mouthful. "Fuck, he just did that thing where he's all grabbing and hugs and pure childhood terror and I almost brought him home again." 

"He's gonna get eaten alive when he hits middle school," Roxy mused. 

"If he survives elementary. It was pathetic. Cute as shit but pathetic." 

"It runs in the family."

"Shut up."

"No way, bro. You were just as bad. One time when you were like seven you cried because the 'rents wouldn't let you play with my dolls anymore." 

"That never happened."

"It happened like six times." 

"Don't finish your whiskey. I'm gonna need you to go get more," Dirk said, draining the last two mouthfuls of liquor in his mug. 

"He'll be fine, you know." 

"Rox," Dirk started. 

"No, shut up. I know what you're doing and I know where this is gonna go. I mean I know it's a bit different because he was already a thing that existed when you met him and you literally picked him out of a shitty situation and basically single-handedly caught him up on all the developmental shit he'd skipped and wow, yeah, he's starting kindergarten when he should be and you're sending him out alone into the big wide world," Roxy explained in between sips of the alcohol. "It's scary. Rosie's in the first grade and I'm pretty sure I was in labour with her a week ago. You missed out on the first three years so it feels like that's been cut short on you but shit, baby brother, he's yours and he ain't going anywhere."

"You just want to see me cry, don't you?"

"It's been a long time since you last did," Roxy shrugged. "So are we doing anything else today or just sitting around drinking whiskey until the kids get home like fifties housewives?"

"Hey, I've got work to do. I need to fly out in a few weeks."

"So see you at lunch?"

"I guess. What do you do without a kid hanging off you all day? I've got no idea anymore."

"I dunno, enjoy it? They'll be home sooner than you think," Roxy said. She put her mug down on the coffee table and stood up. "I've got to finish my paper, the company need the research by Friday or it fucks with my funding."

+++

Roxy had picked the kids up that first afternoon and Dave found Dirk watching Judge Judy in the basement before Rose was even out of the minivan. He crawled up into his uncle's lap and just sat there quietly, staring at the TV while Dirk softly drummed out a beat on his back. Rose, being a year older almost to the day, had started school the previous Fall. With Roxy working in her office during the day, it left Dave with Dirk for the majority of his time. They saw Roxy for lunch, and they could interrupt her if they needed to, but school hours were almost exclusively theirs.

For an entire school year, Dave had spent the bulk of his days doing whatever Dirk did. They watched movies, made trips into town, played video games. Dirk would do as much writing as he could and when he got bored, he'd switch to mixing. He'd shown Dave the basics of how to work most of the technology he kept in his study when he'd seemed interested. He taught him how to balance on a skateboard and after almost four months the kid had figured out how to ollie over almost anything he could drag out onto the road, including a dead opossum. He'd figured out how to do almost anything he needed to with a kid attached because Dave was rarely far away. Even in the afternoons when he was tired and cranky because Dirk had dragged him across the state for groceries and new shoes because he'd outgrown yet another pair of Rose's old ones, he would nap on the basement couch so he could fall asleep to the muffled beat of whatever track his uncle was working on in the next room. 

They were months that Dirk was never going to get again, he knew that. It was the golden year between Rose starting school and Dave following the next, when Roxy was going to take the opportunities that one less child in the house gave her to step up her research - she was going for a promotion that would require more national travel on top of the international and needed the evidence to back up her theories. Never again would he get endless weeks of time to just spend with Dave at home, where it didn't matter that he was uncle and never dad, where he could watch him grow and develop and change. His language caught up in that year and he went from stunted sentences to comprehensible to even those who rarely interacted with children. His vowels had become shorter, more clipped to match his mother and sister, leaving behind any trace that he'd spent his formative years in the South. Dirk saw the opportunity and took it, knowing it was still at least twelve years before they planned to tell Dave the truth. He had one year of Dave to himself and there was no point wasting it.

"Is it over?"

"Yeah, dude's insane. He thought Judy'd give that douche there a hell of a sentence for throwing a frisbee onto his roof or something. Never had a chance."

"Judy's too good."

"Heh, yeah she is. So how was school?"

"No one tried to eat me but the lunch lady really is scary!"

"Scary how?"

"She's got a bigger beard than you do."

"Hey, this is like three days of beard, give me some credit," Dirk laughed. "What else?"

"I dunno. We did worksheets and had recess and no one played with me."

"What did you do?" 

"I tried to find Rose but she kept running away when I found her."

"School's been her place for a while now, she'll get used to having you there soon."

"Do I have to go back?" Dave asked. He let his head fall against Dirk's shoulder and closed his eyes, exhausted from the change in routine and from being around too many people he didn't know. Dirk sighed and just held him closer.

"Yeah, you do. You want mac and cheese for dinner?" 

"Yeah," Dave said. Dirk ignored the sniffle. He stood up and threw Dave over his shoulder to carry him back up to the kitchen because yeah, mac and cheese sounded like a good first day of school dinner. He dropped the boy down on the couch as he walked past to the fridge.

"Where's Rose?" 

"I dunno."

"Where's your mom?"

"I dunno."

Dirk turned away from the appliance before calling out to his sister. 

"Can I get a hell yeah for mac and cheese!" 

"Hell yeah!"

Roxy's response cry came from upstairs. He got the feeling that Rose hadn't had the best day but there was no way he was going near that one with a ten foot pole. When she got into one of her silent, angry moods, she was entirely Roxy's problem and he refused to step in. He started on the sauce and managed to convince Dave to help, eventually, but when dinner time rolled around not even a bowl of famous Strider mac and cheese could get either kid to perk up. 

The remainder of that first week had been challenging. Dave refused to sleep in his own bed and Rose had been impossible to get out of hers. They had both fought every request Roxy made of them over meals, showers, and cleaning. They didn't want to do anything and when they weren't doing anything they found a way to make nuisances of themselves. 

It was Rose who broke first, screaming at Roxy on the Thursday morning because she didn't want to brush her teeth. Her shouting had sent Dave into a panic and she only stopped when Dirk grabbed her and marched her downstairs, limbs hitting him wherever she could reach. She went limp when he sat down on the couch with her and sobbed into his shirt. It took another twenty minutes to get the information out of her. 

She didn't want a new class. There was a note, scrunched up in the bottom of her school bag, that Roxy was meant to sign. They wanted to transfer her into the advanced class because there was nothing new she could learn in her current place. She didn't want to go. She wanted to stay in her regular first grade classroom with the friends she had finally made. She didn't want things to change and didn't want to go to class with the smart kids because they didn't like her. She didn't think she was smart enough to be in that class and they couldn't make her if Roxy never found the note. Dirk reassured her that she was definitely smart enough, he'd been the one to help teach her letters and numbers and she'd been the best kid he'd ever taught. 

Roxy had signed the note for her later that day but it was up to Rose whether she handed it in or not. It took her three weeks to decide to submit the permission slip.

Dave spent the first month refusing to be left alone. He couldn't get to sleep on his own and Roxy and Dirk took it in turns sleeping with him in their beds. He needed someone with him while he showered, while he ate, while he coloured. He sat in Roxy's lap and hugged her and clung to her hand, while he perched himself on Dirk's shoulders, hung off his neck, and occasionally even squeezed himself between his uncle and the back of his desk chair. Not even Rose sitting with him during recess seemed to help.

It was almost December by the time Roxy got him to sleep in his own bed.

+++

"Mom?"

"Yeah, hun?"

"Why did Dave go down to the basement with a sword before?"

"He _what_?"

"He went down to the basement with a sword."

"Oh my God, I'll kill him myself," Roxy said. Jaspers jumped off her lap when she stood up from the couch and darted across to the basement stairs. They'd been having a nice time, just the two of them, watching an afternoon movie in the living room without either of the boys. In retrospect, it was so suspicious that she hadn't even heard from them in over an hour that it didn't register as strange. When she thought back further, it had been weeks since Dave had sought her out for an unnecessarily drawn-out hug and had started disappearing instead. 

Between the freedom she had won back from her son and the fact Dirk had made four trips back and forth to Houston in as many weeks, the house had been unnaturally quiet. 

"What?"

"I mean your uncle, not Dave."

"What did Uncle Bro do?" Rose asked, diving off the couch after her mother. She paid no attention to the popcorn bowl that had upturned onto the carpet and scared Jaspers out of the room. She ran to catch up, almost bumping into Roxy at the bottom of the stairs. 

"He did something Momma told him not to."

"Did he put Cal in your shower again?"

"No, because if he ever does that again he's out on his ass," Roxy said. "Where are they?"

"I dunno, I just saw Dave go downstairs," Rose said. She stalked along behind Roxy, following her through and into the garage when she opened the connecting door. "He's in so much trouble," she whispered. 

When the door opened, two swords clattered onto the concrete floor. Dirk had dropped his first in a show of surrender when he saw Roxy, casually leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded and scowl in place. Dave followed his lead and sent his own sword skidding across the ground; it made another crash as it hit a stack of old paint tins. 

"So who's gonna tell me the best lie?"

"You go first, buddy," Dirk said, looking over at Dave. "I need a minute here."

"No way!" 

"Way. Spill," Roxy said. 

"Uncle Bro said it would be cool!" Dave blurted out. "They're not really sharp, only a little bit sharp! Well, they were sharp before. They came in the mail from the internet and they were sharp but Uncle Bro made them not so sharp so they wouldn't be dangerous!" 

"And?"

"And they're not the nice ones from his bedroom wall?"

"Thanks, baby. Now how about you two go back upstairs so I can talk with your uncle?"

"But -"

"No buts, Davey. Upstairs, quick. Momma's gotta kick some ass," Roxy said. She patted Dave's hair down as he walked past her and waited until both his and Rose's footsteps finished climbing the basement stairs. "What the fucking _fuck_?"

"How long since you last had him sitting outside the bathroom door crying while you were in there?"

"What?"

"Answer that and then try telling me I'm in shit here," Dirk said.

"That's not fair, you can't do that."

"Do what?"

"Make me admit that it's been fucking sweet taking a piss without him crying at me for doing it alone." 

"So I win." 

"He's too clingy so you teach him your sword fighting bullshit? You hoping to accidentally cut off an arm so he physically can't hang off you anymore?"

"Nah, it gives him character." 

"I'm onto you, Strider. Don't kill my baby," Roxy said. 

It wasn't like it was dangerous. The swords were just shitty replicas he'd picked up on eBay and blunted so that neither one could draw blood. He'd taught Dave how to hold the thing properly, how to avoid dropping it onto his own toes, how to block and protect himself. He hadn't even planned on teaching him how to attack anyone. It was a confidence booster, more than anything. The last thing he needed to do was plant the idea of actually attacking the other kids in Dave's head. But self confidence? That was something he could use.

He'd wanted to teach the kid something he wouldn't learn at school, something that could be his - theirs - that no one could take away. Something that would help him come into his own as a person in time, a hobby, a skill. Something that would teach him to trust his gut and rely on himself more than the adults. They'd gotten away with it for weeks. He picked up his sword from the floor and walked over to collect Dave's as well. Roxy watched him, eagle-eyed, through every movement. 

"How's sword fighting worse than collecting dead things in jars?"

She didn't have a comeback for that one.


	7. [I3]: Rap Offs In The Living Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a family tradition is established.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note that there's a full-length chapter already posted after this intermission today!

**March, 2004.**

Roxy and Dirk had always been competitive. The two years between them had never been an issue and Roxy treated her brother as nothing less than an equal. When she got As without trying, he studied harder to bring up his own grades. When she took up shooting, he started hockey. When she won state competitions, he led his team to victory against a school from Vancouver.

He'd never caught up to her academically. He called it quits on formal education after he earned his Bachelors in Engineering. It had taught him little he hadn't been able to figure out on his own, but he felt well equipped to cope should an emergency bridge ever need building. Roxy, on the other hand, hadn't stopped until she'd earned herself a Doctorate and a place working for a global research company that were more than keen to pay for her to get another.

In the decade since he'd started working on the bare bones for his first EP, he hadn't lost a single rap-off against his sister. It had been a joke in the beginning, but over time had turned into something they took more seriously. The annual competition was held no less than a dozen times a year and at some point, the kids had started to join in as well.

The first time Dave had competed for the title somewhere around the previous Christmas, he'd done so with the help of cue cards and Lil' Cal wrapped around his shoulders for reassurance. Every time the kid stumbled over a word or struggled to read his own handwriting, Dirk was sure his heart was about to give out from an overload of raw emotion. Rose's first attempt a few months after that took everyone by surprise and Roxy cheered her on and demanded that she win the title.

Unfortunately, Dave was judging. He gave his uncle first place, Rose second, Cal third, himself fourth. Roxy came eight millionth.

They never spoke about that particular rap-off again.

 


	8. [A1A5]: paul is a good name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the kids celebrate their ninth and tenth birthdays, Dirk makes a move, and a new family member is introduced.

**December, 2005.**

"Are you busy?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Mom says you have to come downstairs."

"I said I'm doing things," Rose snapped. She dropped the violin from her shoulder and stared at her little brother. "Are you deaf?"

"No, but she said now and I think she's angry."

"How angry?"

"Uncle Bro got me a new sword."

"And you want me to go downstairs and talk to her?!"

"She said! She'll yell at me again if you don't!"

Rose had become more accepting of Dave's continual presence over the years. She had initially avoided him at school because she was worried that her friends would like him more than they liked her. That hadn't happened. Her friends thought he was weird and quiet and didn't like that he was the only kid in their school allowed to wear his ever-changing sunglasses inside just because he complained about headaches. As his kindergarten year had become first then the second grade, she had become more openly protective of him out on the playground when the other kids in his year continued to irritate him until he retaliated. 

At home, it was a different story altogether. They got along well enough but when someone was in trouble it was every man for himself, a rule which even extended to their uncle. Rose knew that when her mom was angry at her own brother, anything could happen. She'd always looked up to them because she knew how hard it was to have an annoying little brother, but somehow they were grown-ups and they liked each other enough to live in the same house. She didn't want Dave to live in her house when she grew up but she wanted to like him enough that he could stay over sometimes. She thought she'd like that. 

But she didn't like it when he burst into her room to relay messages from their mom. Especially not messages that she had sent while she was angry, because when she was angry she expected everyone to do ridiculous chores and if they weren't done, she only got angrier. When she got angrier, the chores got even more ridiculous. One time, Dirk had accidentally washed his jeans with his cell phone still in the pocket and broken the machine. Roxy had been so angry - because it meant having to decide on a new machine - that everyone had needed to repaint the basement bathroom. Another time, Dave had almost been hit by a logging truck because he was skateboarding on the road and they'd all been forced to wash every single piece of crockery three times as a punishment for his stupidity. A year earlier, when they had all been made to wipe down every green object in the house, Rose had finally realised that her mother was insane.

"But if I go down there she'll yell at me!" 

"But if you don't she'll yell at me because I didn't tell you to go downstairs to get yelled at!" 

"I don't want to get yelled at!" 

"Neither do I!" 

Rose didn't have anything to say to that, because they knew that whatever they did next would involve someone getting yelled at by mom and then everyone would have to do something stupid for three hours until she wasn't so angry anymore. 

"Where's Uncle Bro?" Rose asked. Dave shrugged and made a running leap for the end of her bed. He vaulted over the footboard and crash-landed somewhere in the middle of the mattress. He scooped Jaspers up from his place on Rose's pillow and dragged the cat into his lap. Rose giggled.

"I think he's in the basement. He disappeared real quick."

"What's Mom doing?"

"When I left she was taking all the spoons and forks out of the drawer. I think she's gonna swap them all around," Dave said. 

"But we just learnt where she put everything last time," Rose whined. She swung the violin up onto the empty shelf in her bookcase along with the bow, not bothering to put it away properly. 

"Is she crazy?"

"She's really crazy. But so is Uncle Bro."

"He's not crazy."

"He is so," Rose said. "They're both crazy."

"Are we crazy?"

"Nah, but they are. If I go you have to come with me." 

"No way!" Dave exclaimed. "I was down there before!"

"But if Mom starts yelling you can do something cute and distract her!"

"Like what?"

"I dunno, just look cute and she'll apologise!" 

Dave didn't think that her idea was the best one they'd ever had, but it seemed like it would work. He reluctantly followed his sister back down into the kitchen to face their mother. They silently dragged chairs out from the table and sat up across from where Roxy was polishing the silverware with an old cloth. 

"Hi Momma," he chanced. Rose kicked him under the table. 

"Hi baby," Roxy replied. "Do you guys want a party for your birthdays?"

"Huh?"

"A party! You'll be ten, Rosie! Don't you want a party?"

"Aren't you angry?" Rose asked. 

"At your uncle, yeah. He's in time out," Roxy waved a hand dismissively, as if sending her thirty four year old brother for a time out was a thing normal people did. "He's allowed out to make dinner later. Now, party." 

"What about me?"

"You get to help, but you're only nine, Davey. Ten's a pretty big birthday."

"That's not fair!"

"You get to decide more next year, that's fair."

"No it's not! What if Rose picks something boring and I have to go and it ruins my birthday?"

"Well then, you can ruin hers next year when you turn ten," Roxy said. "You want friends over and cake and everything?" 

"I dunno," Rose shrugged. "How many weeks left?"

"Two." 

"Can I think about it?" 

Roxy nodded. She knew birthday weekend was one of their favourite weekends of the year. She also knew that despite her suggestion that Rose make the decision on her own, she wouldn't be able to settle on a plan that her little brother hated. 

She had to be doing something right in between the frequent trips abroad because when it came down to it, Dave and Rose were pretty good kids.

+++

"Are we there yet?"

It had taken the kids almost an entire week to decide where they wanted to go. With their actual birthdays both falling over the weekend it made the whole ordeal seem like a much more important decision than it had been in previous years. In the end, they'd settled on the zoo. 

They didn't really care which zoo it was. It wasn't a request for the Central Park Zoo, or the one in Ottawa they'd heard about. Roxy decided on the New York State Zoo, since it meant they could still be home before dark if they left early enough in the day. 

Rose had asked her friends along but when Dave shrugged and said there wasn't anyone from school that he thought would really want to come with him, she'd un-invited them on the excuse that her mom's minivan had broken and they had to take her uncle's smaller car instead. Dave gave her a funny look when she announced over dinner on the Friday night that her friends couldn't come anymore. She had just shrugged and said it was okay. Dave's birthday was first, on the Saturday. She didn't want her friends coming along and ruining it for him just because he didn't have any of his own. 

"Does it look like we're there?" 

"I can't tell, it's all just trees," Rose retorted. 

Dirk turned around in the passengers' seat and stared at her, slowly narrowing his eyes until they were almost closed. 

"Are you even looking at me?" 

"Shit, sorry. Let me try again," he said, pushing his sunglasses up onto his head. He repeated his eye-narrowing and Rose just stared right back at him until he gave up. "Another forty."

"Thanks, Uncle Bro." 

"Hey Momma?" Dave said, without looking up from his DS.

"Yeah, Davey?" 

"Are we almost there?"

"I just asked that!"

"You asked Uncle Bro, he's a liar."

"Hey!"

"I don't know what you're upset about," Roxy said. "You lie to 'em all the time. You did good, baby, there's only fifteen to go." 

"See?" 

"I don't even care though," Rose said. 

"Then why did you ask?"

"Because I'm bored," she said in response to her mother's question. 

"So you do care," Dirk said as he turned back around in his seat. "You're just too cool to admit it."

"No, I just finished my book and now I'm bored." 

"You don't have a spare?"

"It's in my bag in the trunk and I'm not allowed to take my seatbelt off."

"Just climb over your seat and get it," Dirk said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Don't let the man stop you from reading your little heart out."

"Don't even think about it, missy. You can wait," Roxy said. She had glanced up at the rear view mirror just in time to see Rose's hand going for her seatbelt buckle. Rose pouted but let go of clasp then slumped down in her seat. "Didja get to Rainbow Road yet, baby?"

"Yeah, but I can't win it. I keep falling off because it's stupid," Dave said.

"You'll get it eventually, just keep trying," Roxy said. 

"You telling me I got you that like two weeks ago and you still haven't finished it?" Dirk asked, turning around to face the kids again. "Your mom unlocked the Retro Grand Prix before you even got home from school on release day."

"Yeah but Mom's old and played them all before."

"So you're saying I never spent enough time teaching you how to ace every goddamn track on the 64?" 

"I never said that!"

"But you meant it, didn't'cha?" Roxy winked at Dave in the rearview mirror. "Holy shit, we're here. Everyone outta the van, we've got baby animals to pat."

The zoo wasn't the largest in the state but it housed animals that both lived and had once lived in the area. It was novel for the kids to actually stop and look at the creatures without being told to leave them alone, or to get back in the house. It wasn't as if bears roamed up and down the front drive every day but it had happened more than once and being at the zoo meant they could stop and slowly examine each creature for as long as they liked. 

They watched the elk graze in a snow covered field, searching for whatever snacks he could find between feeding times. The wolverines hunted around their enclosure as if searching for a way out. They all sat through a falconry show and watched as the bald eagles soared through the snow flurries along with the owls, although the latter were much harder to see in the bright white of December. When they stopped by the mountain lion, Rose swore she'd seen one at home in the woods behind the house less than six months earlier. Roxy had never noticed any despite living in the area since before her daughter had even been born, but Rose insisted that was what she had seen trying to climb a tree after an opossum. 

They sat down for lunch at the small cafe and ate bags of greasy, soggy fries drenched in ketchup. Roxy was convinced they were the worst fries she'd ever had in her life until Dirk reminded her of a childhood trip to the beach where they'd had fries so bad he'd thrown up into a garbage can on the pier. She pointed out that that had probably been the combination of milkshake and orange soda he'd had before the fries. Dave giggled at the idea of something as simple as food making his uncle sick, because in his now exactly nine years alive, he only ever remembered seeing Dirk sick once with the flu. 

It was at Rose's insistence that they finished eating quickly because she wanted to ensure they had good seats for the bobcat presentation. They arrived almost twenty minutes early and sat in the pavilion as other patrons filed in around them. 

"No, shit, you can't slide out on the corners like that," Dirk explained, reaching down over Dave's shoulders to take control of the DS. "That's why you keep falling off. Take 'em gentle like. Learn the track properly then smash it. See?"

"Why is it easy when you do it?" Dave asked when he took back over the game.

"I've had a lot more practice." 

"I bet Mom can beat you."

"I bet she can, too," Roxy interrupted. "You know I've been kicking his ass at Mario Kart since 1992, right?"

"Whoa, that's like a billion years ago!" 

"Hey, not quite. And yeah, it was great fun going to visit her at college just to get my ass handed to me."

"Not my fault you never bought yourself a Super Nintendo to practi -"

"Shh!" Rose interrupted, "it's starting!" 

"Shh yourself then."

"Shut up, Uncle Bro!"

"Alright, alright, jeez," Dirk said, putting up his hands in surrender. Rose turned back to face the front after frowning at him and he reached over Dave again to switch the handheld off. "Wasn't even me talking that time."

"But you're talking now and I'm gonna miss it!" 

"You're the one doing all the talking."

"Shut up both of you and learn something," Roxy hissed as the lights dimmed. They sat through a short video about the history of bobcat populations in the area. Dave slipped his glasses up onto his head for the first time since they'd left the house that morning, able to watch the video without the familiar blue-green tint. Beside him, Rose was sitting with her legs crossed, leaning forward slightly as if it helped her hear more clearly. Roxy checked her cellphone. 

When the video was over and the lights came back on, Dave pulled his glasses back down. Rose tipped her head up to grin at Roxy and Dirk, a wide, upside-down grin plastered across her face. They both grinned back. She looked back to the front just as the presenter walked out into the room with a tiny bobcat in his arms. He took a seat centre stage and put the kitten down beside him while he adjusted the headset over his ear. 

"There we go, now I hope you kids can all hear me up there," he started. 

Rose made a squeal of delight as the kitten bounced across to the edge of the stage and started climbing the small fence. 

"Rox?" Dirk hissed.

"Huh?" 

"I learnt something already," he whispered, leaning in beside his sister. 

"What?" Roxy asked. 

"You said learn something. That guy literally just opened his mouth and I've learnt something already."

"Huh?"

"Accents are hot."

"What are you on about?"

"I'll tell you later," he whispered when Dave looked up to see what the big deal was. He just nodded his head back to the presentation to ward off any more interest from the kids. 

Fifteen minutes later and Dirk was standing a little back from the stage with Roxy while the kids both petted the bobcat kitten. He snapped a few photos of them on his Walkman cellphone because they'd left the camera at home. He'd just download them onto the computer later and put them in with the rest. They came back smiling and giggling and Rose seemed very proud of the fact that the kitten had tried to bite her. 

"He said it's because I smell like Jaspers!" 

"I'd believe it," Dirk said, lifting them up and over the barrier one at a time. "Who wants ice cream?"

"It's snowing," Dave pointed out. 

"Yes or no, buddy?"

"Yeah!" Rose interrupted. 

"Right," Dirk said, handing her a twenty from his wallet. "Go get your ice cream." 

Rose took the money but looked confused when Dirk made no effort to move.

"Don't you want ice cream too, Uncle Bro?"

"Shit, Rosie, and let you kids be the only ones who get to pat the kitten?" 

"We'll buy you one!" Dave said, tugging Rose towards the door. "C'mon!" 

"I'm onto you, Strider," Roxy said as Rose, in turn, grabbed her hand to drag her along with them. 

"Hey, I'm all about conservation and shit," Dirk said.

"Yeah, conservation of that guy's ass, maybe," she waggled an eyebrow at her brother, unable to fight the pull of two kids desperate for ice cream much longer. 

"Check out those shorts and tell me I'm making a bad call here, I dare you," he said. 

"You've got ten minutes before I send one of 'em back in here!" Roxy called as she finally gave in and let the kids drag her towards the ultimate goal of ice cream in winter. 

Dirk swapped his wallet for his cellphone and stood back, checking through missed calls and text messages that he'd been ignoring because he wasn't about to stop every half hour to take a call from Texas during the kids' trip to the zoo. But without them in the room while he killed some more time, he took the opportunity to see what he'd been missing. Nothing important, apparently, just a few increasingly hostile requests to answer his damn calls once in a while. He shot off a reply - he was busy and would call back in a few hours - and pocketed the Sony when he realised the room was much quieter than it had been a few minutes earlier. 

"Those kids were yours then, mate?"

Dirk looked up when he heard the presenter's voice address him.

"Nah. Niece and nephew."

"She's a little…"

"Overzealous?" Dirk supplied. 

"Not quite as strong a word as I was searching for but definitely nicer one." 

"She'll raise hell once she's in high school."

"Now, is there anything in particular I can do for you before I have to return this cantankerous feline to his mother?"

+++

"Oh my God, stop. You're pathetic," Roxy said. She raised a hand and slapped her brothers' shoulder because nothing else seemed likely to shut him up. He'd only spent twenty minutes talking to the guy and had learned something like his entire life story.

"No, seriously. You know why he's wearing those fuckin' shorts in the dead of winter?" 

"Because he knows they make his ass look good?" Roxy asked as they passed a wall of typical Zoo merchandise. The kids had run on ahead to the gift shop to pick out a souvenir or two each. 

"Probably. He travels and does these educational presentations all over the country, right? Last week he was down in Albuquerque, spilled a cup of tea all over himself, hung his pants up to dry and left 'em in the hotel bathroom when he checked out. That's fuckin' precious," Dirk went on, ignoring the gagging noises Roxy was making. 

"Okay, wow, seriously Dork. You're not sixteen so shut the fuck up." 

"You're just jealous because you're not going out with your Swedish duke tomorrow night."

"You'll never guess who it is I'm dating. Keep trying though, it's hilarious." 

"See? Jealous." 

"Look, Momma! A cougar fetus!" 

"That's not disgusting at all," Roxy said, pulling a face as she examined the jar that Dave thrust at her. "That's what you want?" 

"Can I get the opossum as well?" 

"Sure, you can just put 'em with the rest of your dead things."

"My shelf is almost full now!"

"Awesome."

"Yeah," Dave said. He took the jar back and held it up to the light. "What're you gonna get, Uncle Bro?" 

"I think I'm good."

"You're not gonna get any souvenirs?"

"Nah, I got enough today," Dirk said with a smirk. 

"Pathetic," Roxy said. She hit him again for good measure. "And probably way too much information, ew." 

"Jealous!" 

"Pathetic!" 

"What are you talking about?" Dave asked, his eyebrows narrowed in confusion. 

"Nothing, baby. Go get your dead possum and we can head home." 

Dirk drove them all home not long after they checked out of the gift shop. The kids were quiet for most of the trip and even Roxy kept to herself for the hour and a half until they pulled up outside their house. 

"Can I go out and play tomorrow night, mom?" Dirk asked sarcastically as he stepped out of the minivan, tossing his sister the house keys. It was obviously less of a question and more an attempt to rub in the fact he'd scored a date at the zoo.

"Use protection," she said, with a gratuitous wink. 

"Okay, now who's acting like they're sixteen?"

"Hey, just lookin' out for ya, little bro."

"Open the goddamn door, your kids are freezing to death," Dirk said, quickly changing the subject to get Roxy off his back.

+++

For the next week and a half, Dave and Rose were both concerned and unsettled by the fact that their uncle seemed happy. He helped put up a second shelf over Dave's bed for his ever-increasing collection of jars filled with isopropyl alcohol. He sat down with Rose and taught her how to knit because she'd been asking for months. He made mac and cheese three nights in a row and when he couldn't find his cell phone he tore apart three rooms trying to locate the device.

Even Roxy laughed at him for that. She'd been the one to hide it. 

During that time, Dirk made three trips to Watertown. The third trip had him gone until the next morning and when he walked back through the door Roxy had started cheering for him. The kids both joined in and she let them, until Dave asked why they were even cheering.

His mood took a dive after that and it was only two days before Roxy sat him down after the kids were asleep and demanded that he tell her everything. 

"C'mon, Dirk, you don't get to have some bullshit week-long whirlwind romance and keep the details to yourself," she said, handing him a wine glass filled with vodka. She dropped cross-legged onto the couch facing him and picked up her own glass from the coffee table. 

"Are we having some fuckin' third grade sleepover?"

"Nah, I never got information like this at my third grade sleepovers. It was at _least_ ninth before anyone spilled."

"It was you, wasn't it?"

"I'll have you know, mister," Roxy paused to take a sip of her vodka. "That hell fuckin' yeah it was me."

"Fuck yeah," Dirk said and held his hand out to her for a fistbump that was two decades overdue.

"Okay but whatever, that's enough about my ninth grade shenanigans. Your turn to spill, Dick."

"I'm not telling you jack shit."

"Oh, come _on_ , you've been strutting around here like a fuckin' Disney princess for a week. There's gotta be more to him than the way his ass looks in shorts," Roxy said. Dirk threw her a dirty look then downed a mouthful from his glass. "What?"

"Okay, fine, you want shitty gossip, here's your shitty gossip. Jake English is the most pitiful creature I've ever laid eyes on. That story about leaving his pants to dry in a hotel room? Not a once off. He's lost six pairs of work pants like that in the last four months. His vocabulary is frozen in 1927 and he literally forgets he's lived in the States for almost ten years," Dirk said. He found that once he started talking it was incredibly hard to stop and in the end, he'd needed to take another drink to prevent him from running his mouth any further. "I'm not joking. He kept walking up to the passengers' side door and just laughed like that shit happens every day, which it probably does. He's pathetic and it's perfect." 

"Oh my God, you're the pathetic one. Are you hearing yourself right now? This is gold," Roxy giggled. She fluffed up one of the cushions and propped it behind her back but made no real move to shut him up. 

"He's based in San Diego and travels to do all kinds of those talks at zoos we saw him do. Wherever they want or need him, he goes. Any fuckin' zoo in the country can call up his boss and ask him to do a week long gig for them. He's down in Florida this week."

"Oh that's interesting," Roxy said, leaning forward slightly. "You gotta still be talkin' to him to know that."

"Rox, are you listening to me at all or what, because even I know that this shit I'm telling you means one thing."

"Yeah, you're a raging homo." 

"Other than the fuckin' obvious," Dirk said. There were three regular mouthfuls of the straight vodka left in his wine glass and he knocked them back in two. He put the empty glass down on the floor by his feet and leant back against the couch to look up at the ceiling. 

"So when's he back up this way?"

"No one knows."

"I sure as fuck hope you got his number because I'm not listening to you spout shit like this every night for the next fifty years, as entertaining as it is," Roxy said. She watched as Dirk reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He clicked a few buttons and brought up the notes application, then shoved the device in her face. 

"Look at that. Cell, home, work. Personal email, business email, screen name. Address. I got it all."

"Nice," Roxy said, handing the phone back with a low whistle. "What did you hafta do to get all those deets?" 

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Yeah, that's kinda the point of this bitchfest."

"Yeah, well, that's all you're getting." 

"Oh please, you'll come crawling back for someone to listen to you again in another week." 

"Momma?"

"Oh, hi, baby. What's wrong?" Roxy sat up a little straighter and looked over the back of the couch at Dave, standing halfway between the stairs and the living room. 

"My room's really cold. What were you talking about?"

"Nothing you need to know. Now are you cold or is it your whole room?"

"My whole room," Dave said. Dirk noticed him push up his glasses to rub at his left eye and he pushed aside the vodka cloud in his brain long enough to make a mental note to take Dave to the optometrist for a checkup as soon as the kids got off school for the break. 

"Did you shut your window before you went to bed?"

"No."

"That'll be why, it's freezing out there. Go and close it and I'll bring you another comforter to warm you up," Roxy said. 

"Okay," Dave yawned and rubbed at his other eye, then turned to head back upstairs. "Night, Uncle Bro."

"Sleep tight, man." 

"Don't even think about moving while I'm gone," Roxy said as she stood up from the couch. "You didn't even get to the good part yet."

+++

Dirk never did tell his sister how the story ended. He'd snuck up to his own room while she was preoccupied with Dave and refused to say anything else the next morning.

He didn't want to talk about it. He told himself he didn't want to talk about it because talking about it meant an inevitable tidal wave of bullshit from her about how he should do shit like this more often. It meant finding a better excuse than living in the woods with two kids. It meant dragging through half-formed memories of hookups from Texas and it meant stopping to realise it had been a long time - _a really long time_ \- since his last actual relationship. It also meant that Roxy would want to trade stories and he was sure she had enough from before she'd been married to last a lifetime, most from her early college days. The only story of hers he was interested in was her current relationship because hell if that wasn't a mystery that would never be solved. Even the kids were in on that game, trying to weasel information out of her about her secret European partner.

It was the Thursday before Christmas when he woke up, for the fifth morning in a row, to the beep of his cell phone alerting him to an incoming MMS message. Each day the attached image had been of something different, like a nametag that just said 'visitor', or a glass of orange juice. That Thursday, however, it was a blurry photo of a very young gorilla sitting on what were very much Jake English's legs. He skimmed the note underneath - _Shes been there an hour now and wont let me leave -GT_ \- then tapped out a reply - _Busy wooing all the ladies, English? -TT_. He dropped the phone back onto his bedside table and counted to ten, because with Christmas so close both kids had developed a sixth sense for when the adults were awake. 

Rose was the first one to barge into his room. She climbed up onto his bed and stood beside him, frowning down at his apparently sleeping form. She stepped over his legs so she was standing on the empty half of his bed and jumped a few times - nothing. He felt her weight shift again to catch her balance on the plush mattress before calling in her secret weapon. 

"Dave! Quick!" 

He heard a giggle - Rose's - and the soft shuffling of socked feet on carpet. He braced himself for the impact of a nine-year-old boy's elbow to his stomach but instead he got four clawed feet to the chest that tried to dig into the skin when he sat up. 

The kids just stared at him when he swore loudly. He stared back, from one to the other then down to Jaspers who was sitting happily in his lap. 

"Who's idea was that?"

"Both of us," Dave said quickly. 

"Well both of you better get the hell out of here before I throw the cat at you instead. Go get dressed, we're leaving in twenty," Dirk said, running a hand over his chest to check for scratches. 

"Where are we going?" Rose stepped back over her uncle again and jumped off the edge of his bed. She reached over and protectively scooped Jaspers up into her arms. 

"You kids need to buy me my Christmas presents," Dirk grinned. Rose just rolled her eyes and dragged Dave out of the room with her. 

He ignored their complaints and filled the back of the minivan with jackets and hats and scarves because there was no way he was going to listen to any complaints about being cold. Roxy pointed out on the drive into Potsdam that it was probably overkill since they were going to the mall, but he didn't want to hear about it. He forced Dave into a jacket before he was even allowed out of the car. 

"Okay," Roxy said once they were inside, seated in a booth in the food court. The kids had stalked the area for anyone leaving while the adults collected lunch. Dirk handed out the burgers and drinks and left the fries as a free-for-all on the tray. "Who's going with who?"

"I'll go with you," Dave said through a mouthful of cheeseburger. "Rose can go with Uncle Bro."

"Well that was easy," Dirk said. "That okay with you?"

"Yeah," Rose nodded. 

"Anything anyone needs while we're here? We're not coming back until after Christmas so if you don't say anything now you don't get jack until next week," Roxy explained. She reached over for some fries. 

"What are we gonna eat?"

"Davey, you're not gonna starve to death over Christmas."

"But how?"

"We'll do the shopping then go to the grocery store," Dirk interjected before Dave had the chance to go off on a tangent that was only vaguely related to the topic. 

"Can we get marshmallows?" 

"Ask again when we're picking up the groceries."

"Why not now?" 

"Because I ain't about to remember."

"But -"

"Shut up and eat your burger," Rose snapped at him. Dave scowled in response but took another bite of his lunch anyway. Dirk raised an eyebrow at the kids' stand off but turned to Roxy instead. 

"Rules?"

"Nothing dangerous, illegal, or wildly age inappropriate."

"You know that's half the fun of Christmas, right?"

"If I can use it to kill you, don't buy it for him." 

"Grinch," Dirk scoffed. He still didn't know what her problem was with the swords. Dave actually had a friend at school now, however many years later. Clearly his methods were working. "Hey kids," he said. They both looked up and he snapped a photo of them, Dave with his mouth hanging open and Rose half hiding behind her drink cup. Perfect. He saved it to his phone. 

"What was that for?" Rose asked.

"Your twenty first," Dirk replied. He shoved the last bite and a half of own burger into his mouth, and with his other hand, attached a copy of the photo to an MMS and sent it off - _Kids beat apes -TT_. "Hurry up and let's get this shit done." 

When they were finished eating, he took Rose by the hand and lead her off in the opposite direction to Dave and Roxy. They had an hour to figure out exactly what gifts to buy and Rose was in charge of picking up her mom's gift from Dave as well. She knew that she wanted to knit everyone something since she'd been practicing for weeks and had successfully made three uneven scarves already. They headed for the craft store to get her some wool and Dirk figured that he might as well restock his own supplies while they were there. He helped her choose colours for everyone, even though they just went with what they knew were Dave and Roxy's favourites. In return, Rose helped her uncle decide on glass eyes and just how much calico he'd need for a line of new outfit mockups for the puppets. 

Dave's gift for Roxy was much harder because the only instruction he'd given them was that he wanted to try and replace the bracelet she'd lost on her last trip abroad. After circling the mall twice only to find that the nice bracelets were way out of Dave's twenty dollar budget and the cheap ones looked way too tacky, they just looped back around to the craft store.

"Okay, we got the wire, the clasps, I've got all the tools at home, just pick out a couple bags of beads and shit and we're done. Do you remember what the old one looked like?"

"Nope."

"Well neither do I. Just pick out whichever ones you think she'll like then," Dirk said. He threw a small packaged Christmas tablecloth into the basket with the intention of making Cal a new sweater to wear on Sunday. "You know she'll love it and cry no matter what he does with it."

"Yeah," Rose giggled. She picked out two packages of imitation pearls and dropped them into the basket. They figured that was it, and with ten minutes left of their hour they headed for the checkout a second time in the hope of beating the others back to the food court. 

Dave and Roxy weren't too far behind. Dave didn't know exactly what it was he wanted to give his sister for Christmas but he knew it had to be merchandise from the Goblet of Fire film. They ducked into the KB Toys and after fifteen minutes of deliberation he settled on a scale model of a Grindylow. Roxy paused to look at all the other merchandise just long enough that Dave gave an impatient whine in her direction because he'd made his decision and wanted to leave. They paid for the figurine and left the store, his hand clutching hers. 

"So what are ya gonna get for your uncle?"

"I dunno," Dave shrugged. "Oh! Can I get him some throwing knives? He'll think they're really cool and I think if he threw them at me I could dodge them! I'm getting real fast, Mom!" 

"Not that fast," Roxy said. After the threat she'd given Dirk about not buying Dave anything that could be considered a weapon, she sure as hell wasn't letting her son pick out a more destructive gift for her brother. 

"But Mom! I'm the fastest in my class! I won every single race in Gym last year!"

"I'm not letting you buy a set of knives for your uncle to throw at you! The state would lock me up."

"No, they'd lock him up for throwing them," Dave pointed out. 

"Still a no, Davey. Try again," Roxy said as she swung their hands back and forth. "Nothing dangerous." 

"But I can't get him things he likes because he's already got all the things he likes! He doesn't need new headphones because he's got like a million pairs and it's real hard to decide. Can I get him some fireworks?"

"Nothing dangerous!"

"Fireworks aren't dangerous!"

"How would you know, hmm?" Roxy raised an eyebrow at her son and he made a good effort to look anywhere but right back at her. "You've never played with fireworks, have you?"

"No! He wouldn't let us touch them!"

"Dave?"

"I mean, no! We never got fireworks!"

"Yeah, it's a bit late to take that one back now." 

"Shit," Dave muttered. He snatched his hand back out of Roxy's and jammed it into his pocket. He knew he'd screwed up on that one and could only hope that his mom didn't make everyone run laps around the house through snow that soaked their pants right up past their knees.

+++

"I don't even know what that is," Dave said, pushing his plate across the table. "I'm not eating it."

"Dude, it's cabbage. You eat it in Chinese all the time," Dirk said. He pushed the plate back towards Dave. 

"No I don't."

"Yeah, kid, you do. It's in everything." 

"I've never seen it before ever." 

"You ate like six egg rolls last week," Rose said.

"Shut up. I don't like it." 

"Why are you being so annoying?"

"I'm not!" Dave retorted and pushed his plate away a second time. "And I'm not eating that, it smells gross." 

"Mom! Tell him to shut up!" 

"Okay, that's it," Roxy snapped. She slammed her glass back down onto the table hard enough that a little of her spiked juice spilled over the edge. "Rose, mind your own business. If he wants to make things hard for himself, he can do that. Dave, eat the damn cabbage." 

"How can't you smell it?!" 

"David!"

"That's not even my name!" Dave yelled back across the table at Roxy. "Is it?"

"I don't remember. Eat your vegetables or so help me God I'll put in a call to the North Pole and tell the elves that your bedroom is off limits," Roxy said as she stood up to collect the dishcloth. The juice from her glass was spreading across the table. 

"He knows that Santa isn't even real, Mom," Rose said. 

"What?"

"What?"

"What do you mean he's not real?"

"I thought you knew!"

"What do you mean you thought I knew? He's not real?!" Dave planted both hands on the edge of the table and pushed his chair back and away to make a hasty escape. "You all knew and no one told me?!" 

"Hey, settle down," Dirk reached over and grabbed Dave's wrist before he could abscond. 

Rose's eyes were wide, as if she was only just starting to realise what she'd said. She'd been the one to ruin Christmas for her little brother. She'd worked it out two years earlier but Dave had probably had another year or two to go and she'd been so careful because she knew how excited he got for the holidays. Now she'd gone and ruined everything.

"I'm sorry!" Rose cried before anyone could tell her to apologize. "I forgot! I really forgot and it was an accident!" 

"How did you forget?!"

"I said sorry!" 

"How do you even have Christmas without Santa?!" Dave was struggling against Dirk's hold on him, trying to pry his uncle's fingers from around his wrist. "Let me go!" 

"Sit down."

"No!" 

"Dave, sit down. I'm gonna leave you here with your mom and she's gonna tell you all about it. When you sit down, I'll let go and I'll take Rose down to the basement with me, okay?" Dirk spoke in a slow, steady voice and Dave just stared at him, blinking back tears. There was no way he was going to let himself cry about this, not in front of everyone. He sat. "Rosie, with me." 

Rose slipped off her chair and followed her uncle down to the basement. He roughly shut the door at the top of the stairs so that Dave would hear the commotion and know they were out of earshot. Rose was lying face-down on the couch by the time he sat down next to her. 

"I didn't mean to, really. I forgot."

"It's okay, he'll get over it. It's probably good that you apologised back there," Dirk said. He started to gently brush her hair back and away from her eyes, his hand following the silent tune in his head. 

"He should know better though."

"He's only just turned nine you know. One year make a hell of a difference."

"Yeah, but he's not dumb. Only dumb kids believe that stuff." 

"You believed it until you were eight."

"Seven. I figured it out before my birthday," Rose said quietly.

"Seven then. You know he's not dumb, right?"

"So why doesn't he have to go into a special class at school?"

"Shit, Rosie, is that what you're upset about? Just because he believed in Santa right up until tonight doesn't make him dumb. There's different kinds of smart. You're book smart. You just like knowing stuff. Your mom is real good at coming up with wacky theories about how the universe even exists as a literal thing and the worldwide scientific community pretty much agrees with her. I'm good at making things. Practical skills, y'know?" Dirk explained. Rose shifted over a little on the couch to rest her head on his lap. "Dave's pretty good at art. Well, that and finding dead shit." 

"So why does everyone think he's dumb?"

"Probably because he gives literally no shits if people think he's dumb. You're doing pretty good for an older sister, you know." 

"But I just destroyed Christmas for him," Rose said. "He's gonna hate me."

"Nah, I doubt that. You're making him a rad hat, he'll love it," Dirk said.

"But I messed up really bad! I ruined everything!"

"It'll be okay, Rosie. He'll forgive you."

"But what if he doesn't?"

"He will, he's your little brother. He looks up to you, y'know? If you apologize, he's gonna accept it."

"But what if he doesn't?" Rose asked with a small pout. 

"He will, I promise. You wanna see what I've been making for him?"

"Yeah!"

While Dirk lead Rose into his workroom to show her the puppets he'd been working on for Dave and Roxy, his sister was busy upstairs talking Dave down from the revelation that he'd been lied to for years about something that he loved. 

"It's not exactly lying, baby," Roxy explained. "Everyone believes in Santa when they're kids because everyone's parents remember when they believed in Santa and how magical it made Christmas seem and if Momma likes one thing, you know it's magic."

"And wizards," Dave mumbled into the table. He'd dropped his head down beside his plate earlier and was still refusing to look up. At least Roxy had told him he didn't need to finish off his cabbage anymore, figuring that discovering the Christmas myth was a good enough excuse to get out of eating vegetables. 

"Hell yeah I like wizards, you've seen my framed photo of Gandalf."

"It's bigger than I am."

"And it's autographed. It's the one thing I'd run back in to save if the house was on fire, after you kids," Roxy said, matter-of-factly. Dave tipped his head up just enough to give her a funny look. He propped his chin up on one hand. "I said after you, jeez. If you and Rosie are safe I'm coming back in for Gandalf. There's nothing wrong with that." 

"You could die from choking on smoke."

"But my Gandalf would be safe."

"Not if you died."

"Well if I died, I'd die with Gandalf by my side. He's the only man I love." 

"What about your boyfriend?"

"Nice try, kiddo, but even he knows how much I love that wizard. He'd be okay with my risking my life like that," Roxy grinned. Dave tried to smile back but it came out as more of a pout instead, especially when he heard the door to the basement open again. "You want ice cream?"

"Yeah, I guess." 

Dave ignored Rose when she tipped her head down across the table to look at him. She straightened back up when Roxy doled out bowls of ice cream to everyone and looked to Dirk for a sign, anything, but he just shrugged and mouthed the word 'time'. He'd already had fifteen minutes, how long did he need?

"Momma?" 

"What is it, Davey?" 

"If Santa isn't real what about the Easter Bunny?"

"He's a load of shit, too," Dirk said. "Ah, fuck," he swore dramatically, throwing up his hands in frustration. "I'm just gonna go send myself to bed early."

"Leave the ice cream," Roxy said darkly. 

Dirk put the bowl back down on the table and gave a gesture of surrender as he backed away from the table. As his sister stood up and walked around to his seat so she was able to drag Dave in for a hug, Dirk winked at Rose over their heads. 

He'd done it on purpose. He'd voluntarily invoked the wrath of her mom to get her out of trouble with Dave and made himself look like the bad guy, just to save her. She knew that he'd have to do something huge in return to make it up to her brother.

+++

"Mom!"

The urgency in Dave's voice roused Roxy far too early on Christmas morning. With Thursday night still fresh in her mind she wondered what exactly her son was screaming about. She'd laid out his gifts under the tree the night before, like she had every other year, because there was no rule in the parenting handbook that said you had to stop being Santa once your kids found out the truth. 

"Momma's coming, baby," she mumbled as loudly as she could manage. It was still dark outside. That meant it was way too early to be up even for Christmas. Once they made it downstairs and opened all their gifts they'd end up falling asleep before lunch and it was only the thought of naptime coming so soon that helped Roxy drag herself down the hall. 

Dirk was already leaning against the doorframe to Dave's room and he grabbed her arm as she passed. Rose was in the room as well, perched primly on the end of her brothers' bed. 

"Look!" 

"What am I looking at?"

"Look what Uncle Bro got me!" 

It took a minute for Roxy to realise what was different about Dave's room. Against the far wall that had been hidden behind an ever increasing pile of his belongings stood a four foot long tank. It took her longer again to realise that it wasn't filled with water and fish but with rocks and a lamp. 

"Please don't tell me it's a fucking spider."

"Dragon!" 

"A what?"

"A lizard, Mom! He got me a lizard!" 

"Bearded dragon," Dirk corrected. "You're pretty handy with a sword and what's a knight without a dragon?" 

"I'm gonna name her Paul," Dave said. He was kneeling in front of the tank and staring in at the bright orange lizard. It wasn't very big, Roxy noticed, not much more than six inches, so it had to be young. 

"You're gonna name your girl lizard Paul?"

"Yeah, I think it's a good name for a girl lizard," Dave said. "I think she looks like a Paul." 

"You got him a lizard," Roxy said, turning to Dirk. 

"Bearded dragon," he said again. 

"You got him a bearded dragon." 

"I ruined Easter on top of Christmas. Rose has Jaspers, it wasn't fair. Look at him, he loves her already," Dirk grinned. Dave hadn't taken his eyes off the tank since he'd woken up fifteen minutes earlier. 

"Fine," Roxy sighed. "Only because I want my baby happy." 

"I'm real happy, Mom," Dave said from across the room. He looked away from the enclosure long enough to grin back at Roxy and Dirk, a genuine grin and _yeah_ , she thought, she could deal with a lizard if it meant seeing that grin on her son's face every morning.

**End of Act 1.**


	9. [A2A1]: serial killers always live in the woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the kids talk shit, Dirk gets domestic, and everyone has to change their plans.

**August, 2007.**

For Rose, the fifth grade had ended on a high. She'd gone into summer vacation with a glowing report card that set her up for an easy and seamless transition to middle school. Dave, on the other hand, was entering fifth with a mediocre report in almost every subject with the exception of Gym. He wasn't any good at the team sports and he never wore the right sneakers but he was fast and his constant track wins had him near top of the class. His math results were dismal.

They'd only been home for a week before their uncle had gone away for work. It had been two weeks since then and he'd called them most days in between studio sessions and gigs. After the release of his first full length album a year earlier, his previous EPs had been reprinted for a third time and one of the tracks had even hit the indie charts. It didn't climb very high, barely sitting above two hundred for a few weeks, but it counted and he was finally getting somewhere. It was kind of cool, they both thought, having an uncle who was almost famous. 

They both had first run prints of each record tucked away in their rooms to show off one day when he got properly famous. 

It was a Tuesday afternoon on the fourth week after Dirk had flown out when Roxy kicked them out of the house. They were being too loud, the tv was distracting, and she couldn't think. She'd shooed them out the front door with fifty dollars and told them to go down to the Visitors' Center for the National Park and to entertain themselves for a few hours so she could concentrate. They hadn't argued because fifty bucks was a good bribe, but the Visitors' Center was literally the only thing within walking distance of their house and even that was over a mile away. There was only so much they could spend on overpriced soda and stale chips. 

"What do you think Bro does when he goes away?" 

"Hmm?" It took Rose a moment to tear her attention away from her copy of Deathly Hallows. She'd only had her copy for a week and was already on her third reading. Dave repeated his question because he knew she hadn't really heard him the first time. "He works," she said. 

"Yeah, but he does that at home," Dave said. He repositioned himself on his board and shifted until he found his balance. "Why does he need to go to Texas?"

"Because that's where he works. It's like how Mom works at home but she's got an office in New York City that she never goes to. I think she's got an office in Switzerland as well." 

"Why?"

"Because her boss told them to give her one," Rose said, her nose already back in her book. 

"Why can't he just find somewhere closer to home?"

"We live in the woods. There's literally nothing else around here."

"Yeah, but Texas is like ten states away," Dave said as he shifted a foot and flipped the board over. He didn't quite flick it hard enough and missed the landing. He stumbled but recovered without falling. 

"He used to live there before we were born, remember? He knows everyone there."

"I hope he comes back soon. Mom seems more crazy when he's not here."

"That's because he's not here being crazy as well. It's harder to notice when they're both acting insane," Rose explained. "She kicked us out for being too loud when I was reading and you hadn't even left your room. _That's_ crazy."

"Poor Paul, she probably misses me." 

"Your lizard is fine, Dave." 

"Hey, do you think he's Batman?"

"Our uncle is not Batman."

"How do you know?" Dave asked. Another failed kickflip. "Have you ever seen him and Batman in the same room?"

"Uncle Bro isn't Batman," Rose repeated. 

"How do you even know that? You don't."

"He prefers Marvel, that's how I know," she said. She didn't even look up when a car tore through the parking lot behind Dave and almost knocked him over. 

"Yeah, well, maybe that's only to distract everyone from the fact he's Batman."

"I doubt it. I could probably believe he's a serial killer though, that'd explain why he voluntarily lives in the woods with us." 

"If he's a serial killer why hasn't he killed us yet?"

"Because it's hard to dispose of the bodies of your entire family without anyone noticing," Rose said. 

"Yeah, but if he's a _serial_ killer he's gotta be pretty good at it by now, right?" Dave asked. "That means he's gotta know how to dispose of a body properly or he would have been caught."

"Who's going to look for him out here? There's a reason serial killers always live in the woods," Rose explained. She dog-eared the corner of her page and lazily flipped the novel shut and put it down beside her. She lifted up her legs from where they'd been hanging over the edge of the raised garden bed and crossed them, shifting into a more comfortable position to continue their conversation. 

"Exactly, so they don't get caught. And to kill tourists because who's gonna look for them?" 

"Of course. So it's more likely that our uncle is a serial killer and not Batman. There's much more evidence for the serial killer argument."

"Can you imagine him killing people though?" Dave started. He paused the train of thought long enough to flip his skateboard up and land a kickflip before continuing. "He can be pretty scary when he wants to be."

"That's not scary, that's intimidating. Mom can do it too and I think she's better at it," Rose said. "I'm pretty sure Bro only looks intimidating because he's so big."

"Remember that time the man in the grocery store hit his car with the shopping cart?" 

"That's what I mean by intimidating. He got the guy to agree to pay for the repairs without saying anything. I think Mom's dead eyes are more effective than his though because he always still looks like he's trying not to laugh."

"How would you know? You never get yelled at."

"Because I pay attention," Rose said. 

"You watch me get yelled at."

"You don't even get yelled at that much. Do you think it's safe to go home yet?"

"It's been almost two hours," Dave said, checking the time on his iPod. "You wanna get another ice cream first?" 

"I don't think I can eat four in a row."

"I bet I can."

"I'm not betting you my half of the change that you can eat any more ice cream without hurling," Rose said. She slipped down off the garden and picked up her book as they started walking. 

"You just don't wanna lose your money," Dave said. 

"Of course I don't." 

He flipped up his skateboard and handed it to his sister because the last three times he'd gone into the Center with it, Luke, the teenage kid who always worked weekends, had told him if he brought it in again he was going to throw it into a ravine. Dave could understand why, his Mom yelled at him for riding it over the carpet at home and as far as he knew Luke lived at the Visitors' Center.

"Dude, again?" 

"Yeah. Mom's probably gonna forget she threw us out and ground us for leaving without telling her," Dave said. "So no more ice cream." He handed over a fistful of coins. 

"Your mom's nuts."

"You don't have to live with her. Bye." Dave pocketed the rest of the change - there was still over thirty dollars left which meant at least fifteen each - and went back outside. "Are you sure you don't want one?"

"Very sure," Rose said. She felt a little sick from the first three popsicles but wasn't about to say anything. They started off back down the hill, slowly, keeping to the shoulder. Only a few cars drove by since most came from the other direction, driving in on the main highway rather than the road that went past their house. 

"School's gonna suck this year," Dave said a few minutes later. He shoved the popsicle stick into his pocket, still coated in a thin layer of ice cream, and wiped his fingers clean on his shirt. He gestured for Rose to hand his skateboard back. She did. 

"Why?"

"Because you're going to middle school and leaving me there alone."

"I'm only in the next building but I'll teach you the curses I put on those kids in your class if you want. They'll think they're safe now I'm gone but they won't be if I teach you."

"Thanks," Dave said. He stopped walking and handed the board back to his sister. It was nice of her to teach him those curses. He knew they weren't real but the other kids at school still weren't sure what would happen if they risked not believing in them. "I'll race you home," he added. 

"All the way?"

"To the drive."

"Okay," Rose agreed. She dropped the board to the asphalt and managed to stop it before it rolled down the hill on her. She stood over the skateboard and sat down, keeping her hands on the road for stability while she crossed her legs. "Ready?" 

"Yeah," Dave said. He pushed his sleeves up past his elbows and took a step out further onto the road to give Rose some space. "You say go."

"Go!" Rose exclaimed. She pushed off against the ground and sent the skateboard down the hill back towards their house. She almost toppled over sideways when she looked over her shoulder for Dave, who was still standing a few feet behind where they'd started. He flashed her a grin as she turned back around and a few seconds later, called out to her. 

"I'm starting now!" She heard his sneakers slapping against the road as he caught up, so she pushed herself forward, scraping her hands on stray twigs and stones, using all her efforts to stay in the lead. She knew he wasn't far behind when she heard him laughing. His feet kicked up the rocks that the skateboard flicked aside and then he was level with Rose and the skateboard for long enough that she thought he was tiring out. Just before they hit their own drive, he charged ahead and took out the win by almost five seconds. "I win," he grinned. 

"I noticed," Rose said. She pushed herself up from the ground and left the skateboard for her brother to pick up; he just kicked it down the path and up the front steps. 

"Mom! We're home!" 

"She kicked us out for being loud, you idiot!" Rose hissed as Dave toed off his shoes.

"Oh yeah." 

"I'm in here!"

"Oh my God, she's gonna kill us."

"You said Bro was the serial killer, not Mom!" Dave shot back in an attempted whisper. He slipped in behind Rose to walk through to the living room because if it did turn out their mother had been the killer all along, he wasn't about to go down first. 

"I said I could believe he was, not that he actually is!" Rose said. 

"I don't know what you're whispering about but get your asses in here. Momma needs hugs!" 

"Shit," Rose said. Dave bumped into her back when she stopped just before the couch came into view. She spun around and put her hands on her little brothers' shoulders in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture. He just started back, both confused and concerned by her expression. "She's drunk. Get in, give her the hugs she wants, and get out."

"She's never gonna let me leave!"

"I'll feed your lizard from now on."

"No way! If I get trapped you get trapped!" 

"I'll miss you." 

Dave gave a frustrated whine, complete with foot stomp, but relented and followed Rose through to the living room she she let him go. 

"Hi Momma," he said. 

"Shh, no talking. Just hugs," Roxy said. Her arms were raised expectantly as they both sat down, one on either side of their mother. They were both pulled in tightly against her and she just held them like that until Dave started trying to wriggle free from her grip. "Shh," she said. "Next ad break."

"You know you're watching Dr. Phil, right, Mom?" 

"I know, Rosie. Don't'cha like Phil?"

"I do. You think he's an idiot." 

"That's because he's an idiot," Roxy said. She finally loosened her arms from around her children and when she let them go to pick her drink back up from the coffee table, neither of them bothered trying to move. "He's all shitty accents and pseudo-advice given on a basis of falsified theories."

"Huh?"

"Nothing, baby," Roxy brushed Dave's hair back from his face. 

"That was Rose, not me." 

"Oops. Take your glasses off, Davey. You're inside." 

"But I was outside for ages and even the tv kind of hurts," Dave whined. He was fully prepared to dive off the couch if he needed to, whether or not it was a good idea.

"He was outside because you made him go," Rose added. 

"I'm sorry," Roxy mumbled, pulling Dave in against her again. "Momma has so much work to do because her boss told her to be in Geneva by Friday." He tried to pull away as Roxy planted a kiss on his temple; she mostly missed and got his ear. _Gross_ , he thought, and tried to wipe it clean.

"But Uncle Bro doesn't come back until next week," Rose said. 

"I know," Roxy sighed heavily. "I got two days to get him back here." 

"That's it?"

"The company already put me on a flight Thursday outta Chicago which means I gotta leave the state tomorrow night to be there for the 6am flight," Roxy explained. She drained her glass and handed it to Dave to put down for her. "I don't want to go now, I'll be gone when you go back to school." 

"We can manage," Rose said quickly. It would probably be easier to manage the back to school after summer vacation routine without her there but she wasn't about to jinx everything by saying that aloud. She could only hope that Dave realised the same thing.

"Oh, God, I have to talk to him and get him on a plane back here and he's probably in the middle of something," Roxy mused to herself. Dave just stared at her. "He's at work, ya know? That's what he does, that's why he's not here right now. He's working. Your uncle is gonna be super famous one day, just you wait. People already know who he is, how weird is that? Like, if he goes out and he's wearing his stupid fucking sunglasses - yours aren't stupid baby, just his are - people see him and go, _holy shit_ , it's Di-Stri my life is fucking _complete_! But they don't know he's an idiot who can build a self-aware marionette outta scrap metal but can't figure out how to change a goddamn toilet roll," she went on. Rose had long since tuned her out in favour of listening to Dr. Phil belittle the man on stage for his selfish actions, but Dave was nodding attentively to keep her happy. 

"So what do we do?"

"We wait. And when my body metabolizes the _obscene_ amount of grain alcohol I filled that glass with, I ring my brother and I cry until he agrees to come home because he loves you," Roxy said. Dave sighed and let her drag him into her lap and hold him tight, because before he had even entered the living room he'd accepted that he was going to be trapped forever in his mother's far too-tight embrace.

+++

A year earlier, when the first check had come in for initial album sales and the tour he'd done to promote it, Dirk had fronted a deposit on the shitbox Houston apartment he'd called home since he was eighteen.

There was no denying that the apartment had seen better days. It needed repainting and there were holes in the walls from all the drunken games of darts that had been played there throughout the years and sometimes the windows rattled in strong winds. But it was the place where he'd lived for almost a decade and held in his name for another ten, just in case. It had been subletted to various college students when he'd moved back to New York but he'd always told them he maintained the right to drop in and sleep on the futon when he was in town. He made it up to them in beer. 

With the title transferred to his name it was a little harder to convince teenagers to take up his offer. He was older than when he'd started subletting and kids had better access to more believable fake IDs than they had in the '90s to get their own beer. While it definitely made maintenance harder without someone living in the apartment full-time, Dirk had no issue with everything being his, and his alone. 

He could smell smoke. 

He hadn't left anything on fire when he'd gone to sleep the night before. He never had been in the habit of setting fires he didn't intend to control and he hadn't smoked indoors since 1997. He groaned into his pillow because he could hear birds instead of traffic and the room was tinted orange and there was no way it was after six in the morning. It was the single worst time of day to be awake especially when he was almost two thousand miles away from his regular Lalonde-kid alarm clock. Ignoring the fact it was already over eighty-five degrees indoors, he dragged a sheet over his head to drown out the smell. If he caught fire and burnt to death, it was too bad. He had meetings after lunch and a gig that night and he was not getting out of bed for anything until the clock hit at least ten. 

"Oh, darn this flipping contraption to hell and back!" 

Now that was a new one. Still not enough to make him want to move though. He ignored the shrill beeping of the smoke detector, the scraping of a chair and enough antiquated curses to make a nursing home full of grannies blush. He ignored the thuds that followed. Eventually, less than ten minutes later, curiosity won out over self-control and he dragged himself out of bed and down the hall. 

The kitchen was still intact. A good start, he thought. It was always a good start to the morning when your kitchen was still able to serve its purpose. He walked over to the table and dragged out a chair and sat with his elbow on the edge of the surface to help prop his head up - fine motor skills were still half an hour away. He looked up at the figure sitting on the table, feet up on the chair beside the one he was sitting on, already showered and mostly dressed for work. He waited until the next mouthful of toast was taken before he spoke. 

"Please tell me you're not eating the shit you burnt to a crisp."

"Alright then, I'll say nothing."

"You are, aren't you?"

"I was hardly going to be deterred by a little more crunch than I anticipated! Besides, I just lathered enough marmalade on that I can't taste much else."

"I've never bought marmalade in my life."

"Then what the blasted heck am I eating?"

"I've got no fucking idea. It was nice knowing you," Dirk said. He dropped his head down onto the table because _holy shit_ , it was too early to be dealing with this particular kind of incompetence. Every morning was a different kind of misadventure and despite the fact he was running out of ways to feign exasperation, if staying right where he was was a genuine option, he'd never leave Houston again. He felt a hand reach down and pat his shoulder before Jake stood up from beside him. 

"I think your toaster's broken, mate. I went to take a shower and the blasted device refused to pop out my toast when it was done and went on toasting for a full ten minutes! That's what set the alarm off, you see," he explained, reloading the toaster. Dirk tipped his head to the side to watch the next inevitable crisis unfold. "And I bought the marmalade last week so it's perfectly safe." 

"Look, I already told you. I get enough oranges and sugar in soda. I'm not eating it solidified on toast."

"Just try it!"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I think I'll survive a life lived without ever eating marmalade."

"Yes, but it'll be a life you regret," Jake said factually.

"Nah, I'm good," Dirk said. He buried his head back in his arms because he didn't need to watch Jake fight with the toaster again just to make breakfast. He ignored the sounds of a knife hitting the floor and chanced looking up, just for a moment, to check that Jake had already put his boots on. He had. 

"Eat it, Strider."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't see how orange rind suspended in a gelatinous goo is appealing so early in the morning. No, scratch that, I don't see how it's supposed to ever be appealing and I don't even know if we're looking at the same substance here or not, because that does not look like something I want on my toast," Dirk explained, finally looking up at Jake who was sitting back in his previous position on the table. 

"I don't you what you're blathering on about you idiot, but you didn't eat when you got in after your concert last night so you've got to be starving."

"My concert?"

"What of it?"

"Nothing," Dirk smirked and picked up a slice of the marmalade toast Jake had made for him. "Thanks, Mom." 

"Shut your facehole and just eat it," Jake said, swatting at his arm. Dirk raised an eyebrow in response but when he remembered that the last thing he'd eaten was half a bag of Wendy's fries at four o'clock the previous afternoon, he tore off the corner of the slice without giving a second thought to Jake's choice of spread. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"I don't hear any complaints about your breakfast despite your apparent aversion to trying anything previously untested."

"It's concentrated sugar and fruit skin. What am I supposed to say?"

"A heartfelt thank you for successfully counteracting the attempt your toaster made on our lives would be nice," Jake mused.

"Who puts toast in and then goes for a shower? That's a bad move, everyone knows that. Toast goes stone cold before you're even halfway to the bathroom," Dirk said. He reached for the second slice but made a point of ignoring the grin on Jake's face when he did. 

"Quite the contrary. While the toast _is_ only half done and sits cold and alone while you're in the shower, all it takes is another thirty seconds and you've got fresh hot toast when you're clean and ready to eat," Jake explained. "It's a brilliant time saver."

"How much time could you possibly have saved over the years doing that?"

"I'd wager a good five minutes over the course of the last decade alone."

Dirk snorted.

Every morning had been the same. Jake had arrived a week earlier and it was alarming how quickly they fell into a routine. It was rare for them to be in the same city at the same time but with a little planning and a few white lies to children on Dirk's part, they had managed at least a week together every two months or so for almost two years, plus most of the previous summer spent in San Diego. Jake's travel was erratic at best and sometimes had him going from Phoenix to Georgia to Minneapolis over the course of a week. Their schedules never matched up no matter how carefully Dirk selected the order of cities for tour dates and the one time they'd both been in Seattle on the same day, they'd only overlapped by three hours. Jake insisted that their airport Burger King date was still his favourite, eight months after the fact. 

Dirk's business trip had been in the works for weeks. He'd planned meetings with his manager and booked his studio hours and he had one month to complete as much of the production as he could. He'd be able to finish the rest back in New York but the bulk of the recording needed to happen in Houston. If he got that done, he'd still be on schedule for a November launch and a November launch meant he'd have everything done by Christmas. He'd never missed Christmas and had no plans to be away during the holidays. 

Jake hadn't given him any warning that he'd been rostered to Houston for two weeks. He just got on the plane and sent Dirk a photo of the 'Welcome to Texas' sign at the airport and asked if they could have wings for dinner.

"That's one hell of a time saver. What're you gonna blow those savings on?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Jake grinned. He stood up from the table again, this time searching his pockets for the usual combination of wallet, cell phone, and car keys. He found two out of three on the first try and ran a second check for the missing phone. 

"Shirt," Dirk said. He was still sitting in front of the now-empty toast plate, one hand propping his head up. Another few hours sleep sounded good. Waking up at the crack of dawn had never seemed like a good plan of attack when your day didn't finish until 3am. 

"Pardon?"

"Breast pocket, you idiot."

"I would have realised it was there in due course," Jake said dismissively. "Alrighty then, he who appears to know all. If the phone is in my shirt pocket, where's my shirt?" 

"Back of the bathroom door," Dirk said. Jake narrowed his eyes but stalked out of the room anyway because there was at least a seventy percent chance Dirk was right and the longer he waited to find out the more embarrassing it would be.

"Eureka!"

"It was on the door, wasn't it?"

"Perhaps."

"You took it in there when you went for a shower and forgot about it, didn't you?"

"I didn't _forget_ , I just neglected to finish getting dressed," Jake explained as he re-entered the room, buttoning up his khaki shirt. 

"You know you just wasted like three of the minutes you'd saved in the last ten years with your toast experiment, right?"

"No, I just wasted three of the minutes I could have spent dawdling over what to choose for lunch," Jake said. Dirk had stood up to make coffee while he'd been in the bathroom so he leant back against the counter to finish their conversation. "I'll just have to decide quickly today." 

"You're hilarious," Dirk snorted, shaking his head as he measured out the grounds. 

"I've been told. Several times, actually. By you, in the last three days," Jake said. "Anyway," he paused to reach over and drag Dirk's attention away from the coffee maker long enough to plant a sloppy kiss on his cheek. "I'm about to be late for breakfast with an infantile chimp." 

"I already ate your damn toast." 

Jake grinned and gently slapped his cheek before finally removing his hand.

"Brilliant. Will you have time for tea tonight?"

"Yeah, I'll bring pizza," Dirk said. "Should be back by seven, out again at ten."

"Alright, see you later." 

"Yeah, bye," Dirk said. "Jake?"

"Yes?"

"You put the keys down on the table."

"I don't even like this damn hire car, the blasted thing is broken I'm sure of it," Jake snapped as he snatched the keys back up from beside their plates. "I can't for the life of me work out the radio on it." 

"Just get out of here before you're actually late."

+++

"Person who waives his right to decline this deal says what."

"Roxy, I'm not playing your games today," Dirk said. "And besides no one's fallen for that shit since at least '94, let it go already."

"Never. Look baby brother, I need a favour and you're the only one who can come through on this," Roxy continued. She'd put off the phone call until well after her head had cleared because she'd never had to ask him to come home on such short notice before. "And you need to say yes because if you don't I don't know what I'll do."

"Drink?"

"Don't be stupid, I've already done that. I need to be in Chicago tomorrow to be in Geneva Friday."

"No."

"Dirk!" 

"Rox, I'm busy. I've got another week of studio time booked and I need to get this shit done. I've got a fucking meeting Friday, an interview Saturday, and gigs lined up most nights until next Sunday. I can't just drop it and come back." 

"Dirk!"

"Roxy."

"What am I supposed to do with the kids?"

"Get a babysitter."

"The closest teenager lives six miles away."

"I'm almost _two thousand _miles away right now."__

__"Dave's crying."_ _

__"No he's not. He's talking to Paul, isn't he?"_ _

__"No," Roxy said indignantly._ _

__"What's he actually doing?"_ _

__"He's trying to teach her how to use stairs," she sighed. "I'm pretty sure I fucked him up somewhere along the way."_ _

__"He's _fine_. And that was a low blow, you know that, right?"_ _

__"Do I ever. Did it work?"_ _

__"Rox, I can't, I'm in the middle of shit. Do you know what I'm supposed to be doing right now? Taking a piss. I got up and walked out of a meeting with my fucking producer to take this call and I said I was going to take a piss. You know what that means? I wasted my piss break. In another hour when I really need to fucking piss, I'm not gonna be able to go without literally everyone in the room harassing me about my fucking old man bladder," Dirk snapped. "I literally could not get myself out of this shit if I tried."_ _

__"Try fucking harder then."_ _

__"What the fuck? If this shit was the other way around you'd be ready to fucking throttle me by now. I've never fucking asked you to cut your shit short and haul ass home so I could fuck off for work. I know it's not your call on this but I can't do it, I can't get home by tomorrow morning. It's almost five here already, what am I supposed to do?"_ _

__"I'll sort it out, just get to the airport. I'll get you on a flight in the morning, I've _gotta_ know someone who can organize it. I mean, they got me last minute on a long haul to _Europe_ , I'm sure there's some seat tomorrow on the Houston-Chicago route and we can get you home from there easily since no one ever flies out here," Roxy continued. "Mine isn't until five so I have to spend the night in Chicago to make the Thursday morning conne-"_ _

__"No. I can't do it."_ _

__"Dirk," she started._ _

__"I can't get out of this. There is no way for me to get out of this. Do I wish there was? Hell fucking yeah I do because I don't want those kids left with Jimmy. They'll eat him alive and I'll be the one who has to fucking explain to Jimmy's mom why he refuses to ever fucking speak again!"_ _

__"Hey, you know they're good kids!"_ _

__"Have you met your own fucking daughter? She could sweet talk her way into the fucking Pentagon! Jimmy isn't even taking honors classes, he wouldn't last an hour."_ _

__"Then what the fuck do I do? I can't take 'em with me."_ _

__"I don't know."_ _

__"Shit. Fine, I'll figure something out."_ _

__"Don't start this shit, Roxy. Don't you dare start this shit," Dirk hissed into his cell phone. "You're not pulling your guilt trip shit, fuck you. God, fuck. I'll call you back in an hour."_ _

__"You're the best," Roxy said. He could hear the relief in her voice at his last comment._ _

__"Fuck you," he seethed and disconnected the call. If he hadn't been concerned with shattering his entire phone, he would have hurled it at the wall. But as it was, he'd already had the screen repaired once after dropping it off his bed and it had cost a fortune to replace. He'd only had the iPhone for three weeks._ _

__There was no way he was going to get enough finished before the next day to call it a wrap on production in Houston. If he packed up and left he'd need to put everything on hold until he could get back down South again and he didn't know when that would be. At least three weeks. That automatically bumped release back by a month, two if he factored in his self imposed no work over Christmas ordinance. It would mean rescheduling meetings, going back to conference calls, relying on Skype for interviews._ _

__It would mean leaving Houston in twelve hours._ _


	10. [A2A2]: my sister and our kids are meeting me at the airport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are long drives, airports, and conversations of both the 'in person' and 'pesterchum' variety.

**August, 2007.**

Over the course of forty minutes, Dirk had managed to piss off everyone he knew. His producer was shitty because he was pulling out of a week of studio sessions that were already paid for. He'd put three venues on the spot to replace him, one with less than twenty four hours notice. People that had purchased tickets to his gigs would need refunding and everyone was losing money on that. It was a shitty situation and there was only so much he could do about it. Tickets were an easy fix, he could just issue refunds and be done with it. Make it up early in the new year and put out a video on YouTube in the meantime. Offer the venues some nights on the house to make up for their lost revenue. 

When the choice came down to work or kids, kids won out every time. 

"Oi, you there. You call for a cab?"

Dirk leant down to look through the open passengers' side window when the car pulled up beside the curb. 

"Your driving terrifies me."

"Oh, phooey. Get in, Strider," Jake said. Dirk reluctantly obliged. He'd originally planned to force Jake out of the drivers' seat but he was halfway through punching out a text message and didn't have the will for another argument, no matter how trivial. "So are you going to let me in on the nature of these shenanigans or do I have to guess?"

"Just drive, I'll tell you when to turn," Dirk said, buckling his seatbelt. "I'm booked on a flight at eleven in the morning."

"You mean next Thursday."

"No, I mean tomorrow."

"Well that's an unfortunate turn of events, isn't it?"

"Fuckin' tell me about it."

"You're angry." 

"No shit." 

"Why're you so angry?"

"My sister's a shit, that's why."

"Now, I might need a little guidance here. Do you want me to ask about it so you can carry on for a while, or are you going to carry on like an idiot without me even asking?" Jake asked. He'd pulled out into traffic and was just driving, waiting for his next instruction. He reached up and switched the GPS back off before it could start telling him he was heading in the wrong direction. Dirk gestured to the left without looking up from his phone and Jake changed lanes to wait at the next set of lights. 

"She just calls and says I need to get home because she's gotta go out to work _while I'm at work_ , beautiful fuckin' irony right there. Turn left."

"So it's the second option then, I see."

"Huh?"

"Nothing, just you keep talking," Jake said.

"She called, told me to be home by fuckin' tomorrow, and had me booked on a flight ten minutes later. She must've had it booked before I even agreed to go back or something because that was done way too fuckin' quickly," Dirk continued. "Next right then the first left after that."

"Right then left, got it."

"So I cancelled all my shit down here so I could get home and I pissed off about sixty people, put all my venues out an act for the next week and a half, fuckin' need to refund a metric assload of tickets on top of all that."

"Is a metric arseload more or less than an imperial arseload?"

"What?"

"Not important."

"Turn right at the next major intersection. First parking lot on the right. Anyway," Dirk went on. "I have to pack my shit and get out of here at nine in the morning, end of story. She owes me so fuckin' bad for this, and not just for the time and money I'm losing here."

"You're losing your marbles more than anything else, by the sounds of it," Jake said. He peered forward over the steering wheel to see if he could work out exactly where Dirk had directed them but the building on the corner blocked out the view. "You'll sort it all out anyway, it's probably not as big a deal as you think it is."

"Jake."

"Yes?"

"I just cancelled seven gigs."

"And I'm sure that you've dreadfully upset an army of half baked teenagers by doing that."

"What?"

"Nothing, finish your tale."

"I just refunded over sixty thousand dollars in ticket sales alone."

"Oh. Yeah, that's a metric arseload of dosh."

"Now you see why I'm pissed," Dirk said. 

"It's understandable, yes. Now, what the dickens are we doing at a pancake restaurant?" Jake asked. Dirk made no move to leave the car so he just sat, belt still buckled, looking out through the windshield. 

"We're gonna eat pancakes until we're sick," Dirk said. "I'm out sixty thousand in revenue, you think I'm gonna take you out for fuckin' fancy steak and shit?"

"I think I'd rather just go home and devour a box of Pizza Rolls in front of the air conditioner," Jake shrugged. "But that's just me." He turned from the window to Dirk, who just stared back at him without saying anything. "Dirk?"

"Two boxes and you've got a deal."

"They're already in the oven. I put them in when you sent your request for a ride home," Jake said with a grin, throwing the car into reverse. 

"You're fuckin' perfect, you know that, right?"

"I didn't turn the oven on, just for the record. They'd have been reduced to cinders by now if I had."

"English."

"Strider?"

"You've got fifteen minutes to get me those pizza rolls."

+++

"Mom! Where are you?"

"Bathroom! If you're coming in, pick up the earrings on my dresser on your way through!"

"These ones?"

"Oh for the love of God, Davey, Paul isn't an accessory," Roxy said. "But yes, those ones." 

"She likes it there," Dave said simply. 

Roxy hadn't been consulted about the bearded dragon before Dirk bought it home. It had just turned up one Christmas morning as an apology for ruining Dave's childhood beliefs and they'd gone from there. She'd been half convinced that it would end up dead within six months because Dave had never looked after a live animal before. Was it concerning that her ten year old was far more knowledgeable about dead animals than live ones? She wasn't sure. It was impressive, there was no denying that. She didn't know any other ten year olds who could name the detailed anatomy of a preserved shrew. 

But the lizard had defied all odds and survived longer than expected. In the first month, Dave had taken to walking around the house with Paul perched on his shoulder. She'd grown considerably since then and although Dave was catching up, he still looked like a very small kid with a very large lizard. He watched tv with her on his knee, sat her on the table during dinner, and had once even taken a bath with her sitting on his head. It was the cutest thing Roxy had ever seen and she was glad that her son had finally found a friend. 

"Have you cleaned out her tank this week?"

"I did it this morning."

"Good boy," Roxy said, putting her earrings in. "Now, why were you looking for me?"

"Bro rang and said that his plane is stuck in Chicago."

"He's what?"

"He's stuck in Chicago. He said to tell you that they're delaying his plane because the engine wasn't working so they needed to get another one from Montreal but he said don't worry because you can't leave Watertown until he lands because you're getting on the same plane he lands on," Dave explained, counting down each point in his fingers. "Oh, and he said that he hates you."

"He's just being an asshole," Roxy said. She ushered Dave out of the bathroom ahead of her and walked around to her closet. "Help me out here, I can't see those shoes I like, the purple-y ones with the straps."

"There, on the top row," Dave pointed out. He sat down on Roxy's bed and watched her fight to get the shoes on without falling over. "How long are you gonna be gone?"

"About a week. I have to be in meetings most days and visit the lab a few times and convince people to fund my research."

"What do you even do?"

"Science, baby. Momma does science."

"Yeah, but what kind of science?" Dave asked. He'd stopped watching Roxy walk back and forth across her bedroom in favor of making faces at Paul. Her beady eyes just started back at him.

"Oh, you know, science. A bit of theoretical physics, some other things, string theory. Lots and lots of numbers and we make a lot of them up. You know, science stuff."

"I don't know what any of that means," Dave said.

"Honestly, neither do I some days," Roxy shrugged. "Okay, go put Paul back in her tank and find your sister. We're leaving in ten minutes. Bring things to do in the car."

"But my DS is charging."

"Get a book then, I don't care. Now beat it, we're going in ten minutes."

"Can Paul come?"

"No, take her home," Roxy said. 

"But Mom," Dave whined. "She'll get lonely, look at her! She already knows I'm gonna leave her."

"Hey, no buts. Scram, mister." 

Dave hurried out of the room when Roxy made to swat at him with her purse. He stopped in at his own bedroom to return Paul to her tank and crouched down to watch as she went straight for her water bowl. He checked her heat lamp and when he was sure she'd be alright without him for a few hours, he picked out a pair of sunglasses from his top desk drawer - the ones like his uncle's on-stage favourites - and went to find Rose. 

It wasn't as if it was hard to find his sister, although he did need to head downstairs then down again to the basement. The difficult part was actively dragging her off the couch and back up to the car because she was too absorbed in her new cell phone to realise that Roxy was shouting at them to hurry up from the front drive. Dave shoved Rose out of the house and pulled the door closed behind him and they clambered up into the minivan together. Their mother pulled the car out onto the road before they even had time to buckle up, so Dave climbed over and took the front passengers' seat. 

"Is she lucid yet?"

"Nope."

Roxy had given her the phone that morning. She'd planned on waiting until school started again, so Rose was already preoccupied with middle school, but handing it over early had seemed like a good idea when she realised that if she got held up for a second week in Geneva, she'd miss that window of opportunity. 

"Looks like it's just you and me, kiddo. We got a whole hour and a half to talk about anything you want." 

"Anything?"

"Anything." 

"What's your boyfriend really like?"

"Strange choice, but we'll go with it. What do you mean, what's he really like?" Roxy questioned. She turned out onto the main highway and glanced over her shoulder; Rose still hadn't looked up. 

"Every time we ask you say something different. What's he like? I know you were talking to him on the phone before."

"Okay, fine," she sighed dramatically. Dave perked up and twisted in his seat, leaning back against the car door so he could face his mother. It had been worth a shot and not even his uncle had ever been given as much information as he was about to get. "He's English, and a little older than me. Well, almost a decade older but that's not the point. The point is that he's clever and charming and he lives in this amazing as _shit_ old house. Black hair, beautiful grey eyes, downright gorgeous," Roxy went on. 

"So he's not a prince."

"Nah, I lied about that. Anyway," Roxy went on. "He kind of messed up and was in prison for a while but that was _totally_ a misunderstanding and it wasn't his fault at all but no one believed him. I believe him, I mean, when you know the whole story it's not even that bad, not really. He got out and that's all sort of in the past now so it doesn't matter."

"He was in _prison_?" Dave gaped. "Like, real prison with guards and everything?"

"Yeah, real prison. You think I'd dedicate myself to some pussy? No way, if you're gonna do this shit, you do it properly."

"Aren't you scared? What did he do? Did he kill someone?"

"No, everyone just said he did," Roxy shrugged.

"I don't want a murderer for a dad!" 

"Oh, calm down, he's not gonna be your dad."

"So he's your boyfriend but you're never gonna marry him?" Dave asked. 

"Nah."

"She's talking about Sirius Black, you shithead," Rose said from the backseat. She still hadn't looked up from her cell phone. Roxy had no idea what she was doing on there. The thing was only loaded with fifty bucks of pre-paid call credits and another fifty to blow on apps. 

"Are you really?" 

"You know I'm never gonna tell you the truth on this one."

"Why not?"

"Because you're too young."

"I'm ten! I'm not even just ten, I'm almost eleven. That's way old enough."

"Trust me, it's not," Roxy said. "Did you bring anything to do?"

"Yeah," Dave pouted. He twisted around again in his seat to face the front then slouched down, lifting his feet up onto the dashboard. "You suck."

"I know, baby," Roxy spoke with enough pseudo-sympathy that Dave refused to speak to her for the next half hour of their drive.

+++

By the time he found out that the flight from Chicago to Watertown was delayed, Dirk had already been in transit so long that he just wanted to get home. 

He'd woken up at seven thirty that morning and wandered out into the kitchen to find that Jake was still home, along with a pot of coffee strong enough to keep the entire U.S. military awake for six months. Jake had refused to apologise for that and just told him to drink less than he usually would. He'd finished the pot anyway. 

They drove out to the airport and Jake had insisted on parking the car and walking him in as far as security. He was already almost two hours late for work and seemed to think that another hour wouldn't make that much of a difference, especially since his first presentation for the day wasn't scheduled until one in the afternoon anyway. 

Dirk had somehow managed to skirt around the issue of him up and leaving on such short notice, but he'd gone out of his way to assure Jake that it was okay for him to stay in the apartment until his stint was over. The key he'd given him almost a year earlier had probably made that clear enough without him needing to say anything.

"Okay, bags checked, carry on emptied of all explosives, cell phone still intact somehow. Don't you ever get one of these things, you'll break it just by looking at it," Dirk said. 

"I don't like those new-fangled gizmos anyway, they've got too many options and I don't have the time to work out eight hundred settings," Jake said dismissively. "I'm in Tucson next week for a fortnight and then back home in San Diego probably until January, with the exception of Christmas week. Can you believe they pay me to travel all across the country and call it work, then give me annual holiday leave to go and see family? It's like they haven't realised that they've given me what's probably the literal best job on the Earth." 

"Probably because most people despise work that involves too much travel."

"I don't know why they would, where's the adventure in doing the same thing every day?"

"People like monotony," Dirk shrugged. "I might get back here in December but with this shit happening I have to reschedule everything and it'll take a week to figure that much out. I'll try and get out to California before the end of the year but Dave takes a goddamn month to settle back into school every fuckin' year, and Rose should be about due for her first middle school meltdown in November so I'll have to work around that," he went on. 

"We'll figure it out later, just go," Jake said. 

"I don't need to hurry."

"Your flight is boarding," Jake pointed out, nodding towards the departures board over Dirk's shoulder. 

"So?"

"So you'll miss your flight and your sister will send an angry mob after you, complete with pitchforks."

"No I won't," Dirk said. He thought he'd get away with just the kiss goodbye but Jake, as usual, insisted on a rib-crushing hug that went on far longer than necessary. 

" _Now_ you can leave," Jake said when he finally let go.

"Hey, no way. I got all the action and now Cal feels left out."

"I am not kissing your puppet goodbye in an airport terminal."

"Look at him, he's so sad," Dirk said, adjusting Cal on his shoulder to look as downtrodden and upset as a creature made of polyester could manage. 

"No, Dirk."

"We're not getting on that plane until he gets some."

"You're insane."

"Just kiss Cal then I'll go."

"You're insufferable," Jake said. He rolled his eyes but stepped forward again and quickly pressed a second kiss to Cal's face. "Happy now?"

"Hell no, I'm dating a guy who's willing to kiss a fucking puppet in an airport."

"Oh for Pete's sake, just get on your goddamn plane," Jake threw up his hands in defeat. 

"Nah, I've still got time," Dirk said. "My ticket's First, I can basically do whatever I want."

"I think there's a limit on the amount of garbage a first class ticket allows you to get away with."

"Alright, alright. Me 'n Cal'll just fuck off back to New York. We'll send you a postcard."

"Good, I'm sick of the sight of you both," Jake grinned. Dirk hiked his backpack up on his Cal-free shoulder and raised a hand as a goodbye. He walked over to the metal detectors and threw the bag down on the conveyor belt, then remembered he was carrying his laptop and slipped that out of the bag to go through the scanners individually.

He'd checked his cell phone after finally clearing security. There was a message waiting for him on the Pesterchum app he'd installed despite it being glitchy as hell, so he flicked it open and switched to the new conversation. 

\-- golgothasTerror [GT] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 10:43 --

GT: Some idiot tried to go through those metal doodads with an obnoxiously large puppet on his shoulder.  
GT: And stupidly dared the security witch to touch said puppet.  
GT: I hope he didnt delay your flight!   
TT: No delays for those of us who are willing to splash out on First Class Upgrades.   
GT: Get on the flipping plane you buffoon!

Dirk hadn't replied but when he went to switch his phone off at the gate, he saw one final string of messages from Jake.

GT: Dirk i think i gave you the car keys.  
GT: Dirk?  
GT: Oh blast it.

\-- golgothasTerror [GT] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 10:57 --

Dirk hadn't heard anything from Jake after that. He found the keys in his own pocket once he was settled on the plane, Cal sitting on the arm of his chair and propped up against the window beside him. He assumed that Jake had gone to the rentals counter to let them know what had happened and when he'd touched down in Chicago he'd sent him a message to that effect. 

He was sitting by the departures gate waiting for the replacement plane to arrive from Montreal when his cell beeped again. 

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 2:08 --

TT: Hi.  
TT: Hey.  
TT: Where are you now?  
TT: Who is this?  
TT: Rose. Mom got me a cell phone.  
TT: Congrats, little lady. What's up?  
TT: Mom's trying to convince Dave that Sirius Black is her boyfriend.  
TT: Again? She's been using that one since '99.  
TT: He fell for it. We've only been in the car for ten minutes.   
TT: Sorry, Rosie. What can I do for you?  
TT: I'm stuck in the car with Mom and Dave for over an hour. Now they're talking about Christmas and it's only August.  
TT: It's not as bad as you think it is.  
TT: Mom wants a scale model of Gandalf she found on eBay. I'll show you which one tonight.  
TT: I'm not buying it for her, she's got enough LOTR shit.  
TT: She only wants it because I showed her it was for sale.   
TT: We're not having another conversation about this via Pesterchum. I'll talk to you soon.  
TT: Don't leave me with them.  
TT: Quit the dramatics, would you?  
TT: Woe is me, my fate is in your hands.  
TT: I don't know who thought it was a good idea to give me that power.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 2:16 --

_Christ_ , Dirk thought as he closed her Pesterchum window, why had Roxy had thought giving Rose unrestricted access to an internet connection was a good idea? He wasn't worried about Rose, she could more than handle herself. He was worried about the unsuspecting forums and chatrooms she'd just been unleashed on without them knowing. He almost felt obliged to log on to all the usual haunts and warn them what was coming. 

He scrolled back over to Jake's window, still with no reply. He couldn't see the point in harassing Roxy because she was driving, and on top of that, he still hadn't decided exactly how pissed off he was with her. There was still at least an hour before boarding and he was exhausted. It was only two in the afternoon but a week of early mornings and late nights had him ready to sleep for the next month. He knew he couldn't, not after the stunt he'd pulled in Houston. It was going to take days to put that right and that was if he started damage control as soon as he got home. Feed the kids, throw on a movie that wasn't quite age appropriate to distract them, and get a video up on YouTube apologising before passing out. It seemed like a logical enough plan.

Just one more flight leg to go.

+++

"Dave?"

"Hi."

"What are you doing?"

"Sitting."

"You know I'm trying to sleep, right?"

"It's only seven o'clock. You never go to sleep at seven o'clock."

"I do today," Dirk said. 

They'd been home long enough for him to prepare a meal of frozen pizza with a side of chicken nuggets while he made and posted a video to YouTube. He'd thrown the food in the oven, locked the kids out of his office, and crapped on to his webcam for five minutes about how life was crazy and unexpected and that he'd make it up to Houston when he could.

Rose had stared as he devoured over half the pizza on his own and even Dave had seemed impressed by that feat. His niece had disappeared after dinner and so had Dave for a little while and in the time he'd been gone, Dirk found himself dozing on the couch in front of M*A*S*H reruns. 

He woke to find Dave wedged between the back of the couch and his side, facing the tv with his legs resting over his uncles' stomach. 

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you sleeping at seven o'clock?"

"I spent the whole day travelling, bro. You spend a day stuck in airports and tell me how you feel at the end of it," Dirk said. He shifted over towards the edge of the couch to give Dave a little more room, but the kid just slumped down further and moved with him. "How's Paul?"

"She's okay. Mom wouldn't let me take her in the car," Dave explained, running a finger over the lizards' head. "I think she's finished growing though because her tail hasn't got any longer lately." 

"She's almost two, she probably finished growing a while back." 

"Maybe." 

Dave picked up the dragon from his knee and made a face at her - he laughed when her head tilted to the side in response. He put her down on Dirk's chest. 

"You think that's a good idea?"

"Yeah, she likes you," Dave said. Dirk didn't say anything when he stood up on the cushions, ignoring the kick to his side as he moved and settled himself back down so he was lying between his uncle and the back of the couch. 

"You okay there?"

"Yeah," Dave said. He shifted some more until his head was comfortable on Dirk's shoulder then moved Paul to his own chest. He squinted when a hand reached over and plucked the glasses from his face. "Hey!"

"Nice shades."

"Thanks."

"You haven't taken 'em off since I got back."

"You only got back before."

"You got a headache, little man?"

"It won't go away," Dave admitted, his attention divided between the conversation and Paul. He was trying to get her to walk over the gap between him and his uncles' arm. "It's okay. It'll go away in the morning."

"We might have to start getting you shades with some proper tint to 'em and stop picking up the novelty ones."

"But they're so cool," Dave whined. 

"You can get pretty awesome ones that filter out the UV better than the department store ones do," Dirk explained. "I'll get you a pair of sick Ray Bans or something, they'll be rad. If your headache still hasn't gone away and you've been home for a few hours, we gotta do something about it."

"But it'll be okay in the morning, I said that."

"Only because you would've been asleep for ten hours."

"But it goes away," Dave insisted. He grabbed at the glasses when Dirk handed them to him, slipping them back over his face. 

"Not easily. I think I'd prefer to shell out for some good quality lenses now than get you hooked on pain meds later."

"But it sucks already," Dave complained. "Everyone at school thinks I'm faking it, even my Gym teacher and she yells at me when I wear them outside which is stupid because you're supposed to wear sunglasses outside anyway. I'm gonna have Rose's old teacher this year and every time she sees me she tells me off!"

"She probably just didn't know. It'll be cool, I'll go and talk to her if you want."

"Can you talk to her before Mom does? She'll just get angry and say something stupid."

"You don't want your mom to take her on before the year's even started? It'll be hella entertaining."

"It's embarrassing," Dave said. He'd given up on trying to get Paul to jump the chasm between them and had gone back to pulling faces at her instead. "Don't tell Mom I said that because then she'll go to school and say something stupid on purpose."

"Heh, yeah. Your mom's hilarious," Dirk snorted. It didn't matter that he was still planning to rearrange all the furniture in her bedroom while she was gone to get back at her, there was no denying that his sister was twice as ridiculous as he'd ever been. It continually amazed him that she was such a well-respected member of the worlds' elite research community, but still came home shouting about Alfonso Cuaron destroying her favourite kids' wizard novel. "Point is though, shades are awesome. Make 'em your thing. Tell people you're wearing 'em because they make you look bitchin'. What's cooler, saying you wear 'em because they're part of who you are, or because the sun makes you cry?"

"It does not!"

"Not the point. Point is, you should be telling people you wear shades inside because you're too awesome not to. Nothing wrong with a healthy dose of self-confidence."

"No one's gonna believe me," Dave said. He forced Dirk to hold out his arm, the one hanging off the edge of the couch, and leant over to set Paul down on the outstretched limb. Then, before Dirk could stop him, he climbed over to lie face-down on his chest. 

"Comfortable?"

"Kind of," Dave mumbled. He pushed himself up and plucked Paul back from Dirk's arm. When he removed the elbow that was digging into his uncles' chest and flopped back down, he set the lizard across from him on Dirk's shoulder. 

"Whatever. Look, own it, man. You're gonna need 'em for pretty much ever so you might as well stop giving a shit and make it your thing."

"Please just don't make me wear ugly ones."

"Seriously, bro, have we met? No nephew of mine's gonna walk around in shitty shades. Awesome shades are kinda my thing, in case you hadn't noticed." 

"I noticed," Dave sighed. "I dunno."

"How's your head?" 

"Still hurts."

"Well how about you get off me, for starters, and I'll go get the Tylenol and when that kicks in we'll watch a movie. A violent one. Or Pixar. Whatever you want, man." 

"Anything that's not Harry Potter again."

"I'm with you on that one," Dirk said. Dave slunk down off of him as he sat up and twisted so he slid off the edge of the couch and down to the floor. He tipped his head up and grinned at his uncle when he felt Paul sitting on his shoulder once again. "No other preference?"

"Nah."

"Then go put Paul back in her tank and find your sister. We're watching Transformers."

"That's still on at the theater."

"Don't question my ways, little dude. Lizard in the tank, drag Rose down here, knock back some kiddie meds, and watch robots beat the shit out of each other," Dirk said. He'd already walked through to the kitchen in an effort to locate the Tylenol and pour Dave an AJ chaser. All he could do was hope that the children's strength pain reliever was strong enough; Dave had become so used to the recurring headaches that he'd stopped complaining and they had no real way of knowing if he'd already begun to develop the migraines that his optometrist had said were an inevitability.

+++

"Okay, spill. What's broken?"

"Nothing."

"C'mon, something's gotta be broken. Or like, lost or missing or _something_. You broke a window."

"Nope," Dirk smirked.

"Jaspers was eaten by a bear."

"He's right there, Mom," Rose said, as she pointed out the cat sleeping in the strip of sunlight by the window.

"One of you's gonna crack eventually, you can't keep hiding it forever."

"Nothing happened, Mom!"

It was the giggle that made Roxy immediately more suspicious. She narrowed in on Dave, crouching down in front of him in the middle of the living room. Her eyes flicked around him to her brother, lounging on the couch and shaking his head. Her own eyebrows narrowed in response.

Rose refused to let herself be dragged into the interrogation, save for her single comment designed to point out that her mother was being too suspicious to even notice the obvious. She'd already given Jaspers a hello scratch behind the ears. 

"What happened, Davey?"

"Nothing!" 

"You know what happens when you lie to me."

"We're not lying! Nothing happened. We watched movies, and we went shopping for school things, and we went into town a lot to go to the skate park. It was cool, did you know Bro can do kickflips and stuff?"

"Hey, who taught you how to do 'em?"

"Yeah, but you taught me ages ago and you got old since then."

"Dude, I'm only thirty six."

"Whoa," Dave said, breaking free of Roxy's hold on his arms to turn around. "Seriously?"

"I'm not old."

"You're ancient!"

"Yeah, well, I might be thirty six but your mom's thirty nine," Dirk retaliated. 

"No way!"

"Way."

"Mom?"

"Look at me, baby," Roxy said, dragging Dave's attention back to her. "He's just trying to distract you. Who screwed what up while I was away?"

"She's almost _forty_ ," Dirk interjected. Roxy peered around Dave once again to throw him a dangerous look. 

"I'm going to smother you in your sleep, you asswipe."

"I'd like to see you try."

"You threatening me?"

"Not if you give up on this shitty game you're destined to lose anyway."

"That's it," Roxy snapped, gently shoving Dave aside. "You and me, Mario Kart. Now."

"64?"

"SNES."

"Oh come the fuck on, Rox! That's bullshit. What's so suspicious about all of your goddamn wizards and shit being exactly where you left them?"

"Because I left my ten and eleven year old kids with their stunted-in-adolescence uncle for nine days, shit usually goes down while I'm gone."

"Jesus fucking Christ, how about you call a fucking babysitter to look out for me next time?" Dirk said. At some point he'd shifted forward on the couch and was sitting hunched over, elbows resting on his knees. Both kids were staring from one adult to the other and had no idea who they were supposed to side with. On one hand, they knew their uncle was in the right and that nothing had gone wrong while Roxy was away in Geneva. On the other, however, they weren't sure that agreeing they knew she was off her rocker was the best move. 

Dave opened his eyes wide at his sister, an open invitation for her to get them out of their increasingly bizarre situation. He watched the staredown between his mother and uncle, neither of them prepared to make the first move or to back down, locked in a perpetual stalemate. Rose took one look at the adults, shrugged at him, then went back to her book. 

"Double Dash," Roxy said. 

"What?" 

"Double Dash is my best offer, broski. I'm not handing you a win on the 64 and we both know I've never lost a round of Super Mario Kart in my life. It's Double Dash or we sort this out like men."

"Can you hear yourself?" Dirk asked. "You're nuts."

"Baby?" Roxy started. Panic flickered into Dave's expression when his mother called on him for input. He shook his head violently and took a step back. "Don't be silly, baby, Momma's just gonna ask you a question and all you gotta do is answer."

"No way!"

"All you gotta do is tell me who'd last longer out in the woods. Here's a hint, it ain't your uncle," she said, shooting Dave a grin and a wink. 

"You're crazy! All we said was that we didn't break anything when you were gone and now you're all crazy and why do you keep asking me when I say I don't know anything? Ask Rose! Rose was here the whole time too!" 

No one had the chance to ask Rose for additional input because they were all too preoccupied with watching Dave storm out of the room. He tripped up on the corner of a rug on his way out but they kept silent until he was out of sight and only the stomps of his feet hitting the stairs could be heard. Roxy sighed and sat back against the couch on the floor, her legs tucked up under her. 

"He _really_ needs to start making friends with anything that's not a reptile or dead in a jar," she sighed. 

"Hey, Cal!" Dirk called, tilting his head back against the couch to make his voice travel as far as possible. "Bring me the GameCube and make it snappy!" 

"Cal's not gonna do it," Rose said. 

"How do you know, little lady?" 

"He's a puppet," she said simply. Her book was closed over and resting on her knee, the corner of her current page dog-eared neatly. Dirk just grinned at her then tipped his head back onto the cushioned back-rest again. 

"Shit, buddy, you're off the payroll if that outdated piece of shit isn't down here in thirty seconds!" 

"And you called Mom crazy."

"Hey, I'm right here, you know," Roxy feigned further irritation with the two of them. 

"I know. And I also know that there's no way Dave's gonna let me get mad at Cal," Dirk explained. 

Dave didn't know why his entire family was staring at him when he jumped down the last three steps, or why his mother sighed again and pulled him in for a hug while his uncle hooked up the GameCube to the living room television. 

He wasn't complaining because he liked that she was back and it was nice that they'd all stopped the false accusations, but something didn't feel right so he curled up even more tightly against Roxy and let her hold him close while she set up her racing kart on screen. 

He paid no attention to Cal's glassy eyes staring at him from the top of the entertainment unit.


	11. [I4]: Jake's House In San Diego

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dirk spends most of a summer at Jake's.

**August, 2006.**

Dirk had deliberately arranged for his tour to end in California. It wasn't a tour as much as it was three weeks hopping across the country, playing his annual gigs in New York City and Houston with the addition of a few other cities along the way. He kept mostly to the southern half of the country, with the exception of Seattle, before playing his final two nights in Los Angeles.

He hired a car and drove himself the two hours down the coast to San Diego the day after he finished working. 

It wasn't the first time he'd made the trip across the country to Jake's house, but by August, it was the longest he'd stayed. His last gig had been in early July and the only condition on his extended stay was that he had to be home in time for the first day of school. 

He hadn't known what to say when Jake invited him to practically move in for half the summer. He'd started with a _yes_ , because he had the time and he didn't know when either of them would have that much free time again. The yes had quickly become a _fuck yes_ , because six weeks of consistent facetime with Jake English wasn't something he was about to pass up. 

Six weeks was a long time for two people who'd managed to build a relationship on Skype calls and weekends together in all corners of the country. It was going to prove their relationship one way or the other. They'd discover that they were just too different to make it work in the long run, or realise that it was what it seemed on their borrowed time and struggle to cope with the fleeting visits when Dirk returned to New York. 

It was perfect. 

The hardest thing had been realising that they didn't have to rush everything. They had weeks, not days, to spend together without almost missing flights or work shifts or gigs in the middle of something. Jake had taken the first week of Dirk's trip as annual leave and they'd spent it doing anything and everything that they never had time for while travelling the country.

Jake lived in a bungalow not too far from the zoo. It dated back to the mid-1920s and while it had been in bad shape when he'd moved in, room by room he'd had it renovated in a way that kept everything in line with the original character of the property. The window and doorframes were the original timbers, varnished to bring out the rich browns against the cream walls. Most of the fixtures were original, if not well-made replicas, and the furniture was a balance between old and new. Everything about it screamed Jake English, from the electric kettle on the kitchen counter to the extensive DVD collection housed in a specially constructed shelving unit, right through to the series of skulls that lined the mantelpiece above the still-functioning fireplace. 

There was an antique blunderbuss mounted on the dining room wall. Dirk had cocked a questioning eyebrow at first, but Jake waved off any concerns about both it and the flintlock pistols on his bedroom wall by pointing out that he didn't tend to keep black powder in the house and they were effectively useless without it. He was fairly certain the internal mechanisms were faulty anyway, since they all dated from the mid-1780s. His berettas, however, were locked in a safety box mounted to the inside of his bedside cabinet. Jake insisted that the twin pistols were the only functioning firearms he kept in the house. The rest of his handguns were with the shotguns and rifles, locked in a safe inside an attic cupboard. He didn't count that as being in the house since it was tedious at best to find them.

+++

"Hey," Dirk said, dragging the headphones down to around his neck when Jake tapped him on the shoulder. "You're early."

"A little."

"Dude, it's just on six now. I haven't even thought about dinner yet." 

"We'll go out," Jake said, dropping himself onto the couch and twisting to lie down with his boots up on the arm. "I almost had a bit of a nasty accident this afternoon." 

"Choked on your lunch accident or almost got hit by a truck accident?" Dirk asked, removing the headphones entirely so he could move away from the table. 

Jake didn't keep a spare guest bedroom. He kept a home cinema in addition to the television in the living room. Dirk had set up his laptop and equipment in there so it was out of the way and he'd been spending most days at the desk while Jake was at work. 

He sat down on the couch as well, shifting Jake's legs so they were resting over his lap. 

"An accident more of the 'almost had a finger nipped off by an overexcited tiger cub' variety," Jake sighed. "Her training's been going gangbusters lately, too."

"How old is she?"

"A few months. She's usually delightful, she just got a little overstimulated by all the children trying to pat her. It was nothing to be concerned about, not really. It's no different to a housecat, you've just got to give them space when they want it," he went on. "What did you get done today?"

"Not much," Dirk replied honestly. "I think I've got a full set of lyrics down but this one's more me than Cal and somewhere along the line that got really hard to write."

"As yourself, you mean?"

"Yeah. Cal's shit comes easy, y'know, the kinda deranged yet existential puppet shtick?"

"That's the act?" Jake asked incredulously, laughing when Dirk swatted at his knee. "You walked right into that sting, mate."

"I probably did," Dirk scoffed. "Anything else happen?"

"Not really. I got in early, had a cup of tea, did a few presentations, had a cup of tea, did some routine feedings, had a cup of tea, a few more presentations, then home."

"Liar."

"I'd never."

"The first time you ever called me you claimed not to speak American and hung up without another word."

"I was nervous! How was I to know you'd actually want me to ring you up?"

"I dunno, man, I guess I'd been too subtle about it when I said 'hey English, how about you call once in a while instead of just sending me picture messages all the time'?"

"It was hard, alright?"

"It wasn't the only thing."

"Oh, sod off," Jake chuckled, swinging a knee into Dirk's upper arm. "Fancy a drink?"

"Now or when we get back?"

"I'd say both but I really doubt I can be arsed getting back up just to go for dinner. Pizza instead?"

"I'll order, you get up long enough to pick a movie."

" _V for Vendetta_. I picked it up over the weekend and we haven't watched it yet, just came out last week."

"Hey, it's totally your call as long as you put the DVD in," Dirk said. He patted Jake's knee as a cue for him to move his legs and he did, shifting them long enough for Dirk to stand up. 

"I might just lie down a bit more."

"Lazy shit."

"What time was it that you were at work this morning? Six? No, ten. Were you even up before lunch?"

"Who says the pizza won't be lunch?"

"And I'm the lazy git?"

"I don't know what that is," Dirk pointed out, watching as Jake fought with the couch cushions to push himself back up into a sitting position. 

"Generally a lazy git is someone who sits around on their computer all day and refuses to as much as pop a DVD into the contraption that plays them."

"So I am allowed to touch the player then?"

"Fuck no, I've got the remote. You can just drop the disc into the tray," Jake said. "No touching of the DVD player necessary." 

Dirk shook his head and laughed, but he stopped beside the tv cabinet to put the DVD in before he left the room. 

It was already the tenth of August. He only had a week and a half left before he was booked on a flight back to New York and going home was the last thing on his mind. He'd called the kids every few days and they were growing more and more excited the closer it got to him returning. On the other hand, life with Jake was only growing easier by the day. 

The initial week had been full of new information. There had been the guns, which Dirk knew were a thing but hadn't really paid much attention to until Jake dragged him to the shooting range a few days into his stay. Jake learnt that when Dirk said he was going to shower it was normal for him to disappear for forty minutes. Jake slept like a log while Dirk never even seemed to hit deep sleep cycles. Neither of them were used to sharing a bed night after night but by the end of that week, they weren't about to give it up for anything in the world. 

Dirk put the phone back on the hook and turned around to collect two beers. He smiled to himself because he knew what was coming, and even though he stared at it every time he opened the fridge, he could never resist staring just a little more. 

Wedged under a magnet from the New York State Zoo was a small scrap of paper with his own name and cell number scrawled in orange ink.


	12. [A2A3]: whos in charge when the adults arent home?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the kids are left home alone for the first time because Mom's away and Jake's within driving distance, and friends are introduced.

**April, 2009.**

"Hey Rose, are you busy?"

"Very."

"Can you come here a sec?"

"I'm busy, Dave."

"Yeah, but I need you to do this for me."

"Are you even listening?"

"No."

Rose sighed heavily. She wasn't exactly busy but she was otherwise occupied and had no intentions of allowing Dave to drag her away from her conversation. He was bored and restless and without either adult home he was at a loss for what to do. Roxy had been gone a week already and had another eight days before she was due home. Dirk had taken off with little warning that morning and told them he'd probably be back on Sunday, but he had given them Friday off school so they didn't have to make the bus trip into town. They didn't know where he'd gone but he'd driven himself there and had threatened to drive himself straight back if either of them called him to tattle on the other. 

She pushed herself up onto her elbows and peered at her brother over the top of her laptop screen. He stared back, or at least she assumed he was staring back. It was hard to tell from behind his oversized Ray Bans but he hadn't taken them off since their uncle had left earlier and she doubted he would until he got back.

"What do you want?"

"I need your help for a sec," Dave insisted, gesturing for her to follow him. 

"Will it really take that long?"

"Probably not."

"You're really not helping yourself here. I'm less inclined to help you now than I was before."

" _Please_?"

"No, I'm busy."

"What are you even doing?"

"I'm in the middle of a conversation."

"With who?"

"All of your friends."

"That's not fair! I told you not to talk to John because he'll end up liking you more and never talk to me again."

"That's hardly likely," Rose said, her eyes dipping back to the screen again. The ghost of a smile crossed the corner of her mouth and she quickly typed out a response before turning her divided attention back to Dave.

"It's so likely that it's probably already happened."

"I'm not talking to your internet best friend."

"Liar. I'm gonna go ask him."

"Good, you do that," Rose said. 

"Fine, watch me," Dave said. He got three steps away before he spun on his heel and stormed back into Rose's bedroom. "I need you to come and do this thing for me first."

"I thought you'd forgotten about that."

"It's the reason I came to talk to you!"

"Hurry up, I'm giving you three minutes of my time," Rose said, finally giving in. She hit another few keys on her laptop then closed the lid before following her brother into the room next to hers. "Two and a half."

"Here, take this," Dave said, thrusting his cell phone into Rose's hand. He turned around and reached into the terrarium against his wall, while she just watched and flicked through some of his apps to see what was there. "I don't have enough hands."

"For?"

"Just take the photo, okay?" 

Rose just stared at him when she looked up. Between Paul on his shoulder and the ridiculous expression on his face, there were just too many things to make fun of first. 

"You look like a moron."

"You're just jealous because you and Jaspers will never be BFFs like me and Paul."

"At least I've got real friends."

"Paul is totally real. You're hurting her feelings."

"I'm sorry, I meant friends that are live humans you communicate with regularly. Your own mother doesn't count."

"Just take the photo for me."

"You know you're the exact opposite of cool, right?"

"Just hurry up!" Dave exclaimed. Rose snapped three consecutive pictures of her little brother posing with his lizard and handed the phone back to him for approval. 

"There," she said. "Permission to return to my conversation?"

"Yeah, go away," Dave said, switching back and forth between the photos in an attempt to figure out which one he liked the most. "What're we having for lunch?"

"I don't know, ask me later."

"What are we having for lunch?"

"I said to ask later."

"It is later," Dave said. 

"Please don't speak to me for the rest of the morning or I'll feed all of your dino nuggets to Jaspers," Rose said, excusing herself from her brothers' bedroom. She heard him shout something else in response but between the already closed door and her ability to tune out his voice, she paid it no attention. 

She shut her own door when she reached her room once again and settled back down on her bed. With her pillow behind her she curled up in the corner against the wall, laptop propped up on her knees. Pesterchum was still open and the conversation box was flashing orange to get her attention. 

\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 10:42 --

GA: Hello Again  
TT: Sorry, my brother is incapable of utilising a mirror to take his own god awful selfies.   
GA: Thats Quite Alright  
TT: It's a laborious process, you know. He'll copy them from his phone to his laptop, spend the next three days editing them, then plaster them all over every social media network he has an account with, which is all of them.   
TT: I almost want to admire his dedication but can't bring myself to actually be awed.  
GA: He Doesnt Sound That Bad  
TT: He still takes MySpace seriously.  
GA: Oh Dear  
GA: Have I Ever Told You About My Own Sister  
TT: Several times. What has she been up to lately?  
GA: Everything  
GA: My Mother Seems To Be Unable To Cope With Her Any Longer  
GA: She Arrived Home Last Week With Numerous Tattoos  
TT: Your mother or your sister?  
GA: My Sister  
TT: Oh. Are they cool? She should be excused as long as they look cool.   
GA: They Do But If I Tell Her That Is What I Think My Mother Might Develop Heart Problems  
TT: I see. Dave's broken three pairs of Wayfarers in the last eight months and we're not telling Mom because that's basically six hundred bucks down the drain.  
TT: But I think you win this round.   
GA: Yes I Think So Too

Rose smiled despite herself. It was far from her first conversation with the girl she knew only by her Pesterchum handle and she hoped it was further again from their last. They'd been speaking for a few months after meeting on one of the Harry Potter forums - Rose couldn't remember which - and had ignored every rule in the online safety handbook by exchanging far too much personal information. 

Rose knew that the girl was English, that she came from a family wealthy enough to send her to board at a school in the city. She knew about her mother and her wild older sister who had been expelled from no less than three equally prestigious schools by the age of fifteen. She knew all about life as a boarder - it was what had initially piqued her interest, after all - and they had spent hours debating the pros and cons of living away from home at such a young age. They hadn't exchanged their own names though, that still felt like too much. Rose had been the one to suggest that should they still be friends six months after their initial meeting, then she would gladly give that final detail.

GrimAuxiliatrix knew more about the girl across the Atlantic than she let on. She knew far more about TentacleTherapist's family than TT realised, having stored away each and every detail that had slipped out during their late night conversations. She knew about TT's brother, a year her junior and equal parts insufferable and one of her best friends. She knew about her quasi-insane travelling mother and her semi-famous uncle, her cat, her brothers' pet lizard. She knew all their names, as well, but never mentioned it until TT said them first. 

It was everything a friendship should be and Rose could only hope that they'd get to meet one day. She'd be content with a video call, but wasn't quite ready. She didn't know why the idea seemed so terrifying, she'd spoken to school friends for hours on the phone before. It was different, though, putting a face on the person behind the screens filled with personal conversations. Not just yet. After they exchanged names. 

They were discussing their hopes for the upcoming release of the Half Blood Prince film, still almost three months away, when a second Pesterchum window opened itself and started flashing obnoxiously on Rose's taskbar. 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 11:29 --

TG: hey rose  
TG: is it dino nugget oclock yet  
TG: im starving  
TG: what time is it in europe because i need to ask mom where my red tshirt is  
TG: you know which one i mean right  
TG: its red and a tshirt and its mine  
TG: cmon those are loads of details have you seen my shirt or not  
TG: i might need you to help me take some more selfies later because paul keeps trying to kamikaze dive the carpet and i need two hands to keep her alive  
TG: rose what are you doing  
TG: rose  
TG: its like talking to gg i swear   
TG: have you ever tried talking to her  
TG: you shouldnt because shes my friend not yours but whatever  
TG: she keeps falling asleep and takes like three hours to reply to a hey  
TT: They're not selfies if you have someone else take them for you, you know that, right?  
TT: The defining feature of a selfie is that it's a photo you took of yourself, by yourself.   
TG: youre just jealous  
TG: my selfie game is so raw i cant handle it on my own anymore and need to outsource  
TT: And to think they tried to downgrade you to the special needs class.  
TG: that never happened  
TT: Yes it did, Mom wouldn't let them because she never wanted you to realise you're afflicted with a condition that makes people need to punch you in the face whenever you talk.   
TG: hafuckingha  
TT: I just heard a crash. What happened?  
TG: nothing i just fell off my bed laughing  
TT: Are you sure?  
TG: im staring at the ceiling and i think i broke my nose because i dropped to the floor so fast that anyone who saw that would say oh shit that kid must have been on fire  
TG: why else would he fall off his bed so fast like that  
TT: You dove after Paul, didn't you?  
TG: nope  
TT: She started to climb down your bedframe and you thought she was falling.   
TG: nah  
TG: i wasnt joking about my nose though  
TG: help

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 11:37 --

Dave groaned a little when he pushed himself up from the floor. All he'd done was shuffle back on his bed in order to take a better photo but he'd misjudged how close to the edge he was already sitting. He'd twisted during the fall and landed on his face and his first priority was to locate Paul and make sure she was alright. He slung his arms up onto the edge of his bed and there she was, exactly where he'd left her, sitting on his MacBook keyboard. He finished typing out his request for help before he moved from the floor.

He wiped his nose on the back of his hand, pushing his glasses up onto his head to get them out of the way. He didn't really think it was broken but it was definitely bleeding, he could only ignore that for so long. He picked Paul up with his blood-free hand and slipped her back into her tank, promising to return as soon as he could, as if he were a dashing storybook prince attempting to rescue the trapped princess. He was in the middle of gesturing a dramatic goodbye, complete with hand over heart and blown kisses, when Rose cleared her throat from behind him. 

"Shit, don't do that!" 

"Don't do what? Actually respond to your cries for assistance?"

"No," Dave said. "The sneaking thing. You should wear bells or something so everyone knows when you're coming. Or get Bro to rig the house so the Imperial March plays every time you walk into a room or something, that'd be sweet," he continued, pushing past his sister to head through to the bathroom across the hall. 

"Yes, I'll definitely ask him to start working on that project as soon as he can," Rose said with a small scowl. She turned regardless and followed Dave out of his room. While he went for the edge of the tub, she closed the toilet lid and sat on that. She stood up again when he just tipped his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

"You should though, it'll be really useful," Dave said. Most of the insincerity was lost somewhere between his temporarily nasal voice and the washcloth over his face, as Rose wiped away most of the blood dripping down his chin. "I didn't think I fell that hard."

"You've got a big head. That's a lot of weight propelling your face into the carpet." 

"Hey, shut up."

"You started it."

"Yeah and I'll finish it, too," Dave snapped. 

"That was so lame that I'm fairly sure Bro just had one of those ghost shivers up his spine, wherever he is," Rose deadpanned. Dave tilted his head back down and removed his bloodstained hand - he went to wipe it on his jeans but Rose threw the washcloth at him just in time.

"Where did he even go?"

"I don't know, he just said he'll be back in a few days."

"Maybe he got some last minute gigs."

"I don't think he's done anything last minute in a few years," Rose said. "As in, all of his performances are booked months in advance, some even a year or so ahead now. Besides, where do you know around here that would want him to get up on stage?" 

Dave shrugged. They both knew that he could have easily driven himself to the airport but he'd thrown everything into the backseat of his Camry too haphazardly to be getting on a plane. He'd mentioned something about being back before the weekend was over, but he wasn't sure, and that they could definitely still get him on his cell or Pesterchum if they needed anything. They hadn't taken up the offer yet, but he'd only been gone since that morning and they wanted to at least make it through a day before they called him. 

It was definitely unusual for their uncle to drop everything and leave on ten minutes notice. They'd never been left home alone together for more than a few hours but suddenly Dirk had decided that at twelve and thirteen, plus a few months a piece, they were old enough to look out for themselves for more than a weekend. 

"Maybe he drove down to New York City," Dave suggested. They hadn't been all the way down to the city for a long time and he knew his uncle spent a lot of time there. 

"Why though?"

"I don't know, to see his friends?"

"When has he ever gone anywhere just to see people? He just catches up with them when he joins tours," Rose pointed out. "And most of his friends are in Texas, not New York."

"He's crazy, just like Mom is. He probably just got in his car and started driving and ended up in Canada or something," Dave said. He tossed the washcloth into the sink and gingerly pressed the back of his hand to his nostrils - no blood. 

"I dare you to ask him." 

"No way!"

"Do it and I'll order pizza for dinner so it's here by six."

"Only if you order cheesy bread and soda as well."

"Deal," Rose scoffed. It wasn't her money in the pizza budget. 

Dave grinned and lead the way back across to his bedroom, diving onto his bed after a running leap and a jump off the old milk crate he kept for exactly that purpose. Rose managed to sit down without the theatrics, crawling across the bed to lean against the wall. Dave turned his laptop far enough for her to see the screen as well, then opened his Chumroll. 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 11:52 --

TG: bro  
TG: hey bro  
TG: where did you even go that was more important than hanging out with me and rose  
TG: dont you like us anymore  
TG: what did we do wrong  
TG: are you coming back  
TG: bro come back we miss you  
TT: You're seriously making me regret the decision to give you my personal chumhandle here, little man.   
TG: no im not  
TT: Ask your question, Dave.  
TG: that was my question  
TG: where did you even go that was so important  
TG: oh and sub question  
TG: did you tell mom before you left or is she the only one out of the loop on all the macauley culkinesque shenanigans  
TT: I went as far away from you as a single tank of gas would get me, for one.   
TT: And I called your mom a few hours ago, she's been inducted to the loop. Nice metaphor though.   
TG: thanks  
TG: where exactly are you though  
TG: like give us a hint here which direction did you go   
TT: Canada.  
TG: dude get out of my head

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 11:58 --

Dirk snorted when Dave suddenly disconnected the conversation. It was a risk giving up the truth like that but it was well enough concealed by the previous misdirection that he didn't mind so much. He'd crossed the border a few hours earlier and headed straight for Ottawa with only the briefest obligatory stop for Tim Hortons donuts. 

His cell had buzzed as he was sitting up the back of a presentation on the life cycle of butterflies. He'd been zoning in and out for almost half an hour, his attention drawn back to the information whenever the room full of children started laughing at whatever terrible joke had been made on stage. Dave's conversation had been a welcome distraction while it lasted.

"Thank you all for a jolly good afternoon. Now, are there any final questions about these terrific little critters?"

Dirk smiled at the questions that followed. There were the usual ones about how long butterflies really lived, what caterpillars felt like, all the things Jake had explained less than twenty minutes earlier. He patiently went over the information again, repeated his jokes to equally enthusiastic laughter, and never once stumbled over any of the numerous items by his feet. 

"Yes, you there, chap in the back row?"

"Now, I got here a little late so I missed the first ten minutes, but did you give a detailed analysis of the origins and purpose of polymorphism in the Lepidoptera order?"

"Not today, it felt a little too much for the target audience of these delightful kids. You're welcome to stay behind if you've got boring questions like that though!" 

Jake hadn't even stalled when he realised that it was Dirk throwing the unnecessarily complicated question at him. He pulled a face at the children all sitting down the front, along with a subtle roll of the eyes to indicate that he genuinely thought adults asked boring questions on purpose. He continued to take questions about capturing caterpillars to keep as pets and informed a very small girl that Ferdinand was indeed a good name for the butterfly she had seen two days previously. 

"So," Jake asked when Dirk finally sauntered down from his spot at the rear of the education centre after the school groups had cleared out. He was still perched on the edge of the stage where he'd been sitting to answer questions from the teachers about collecting information to take back into their classrooms. "How many of those words did you need to look up?

"Just one," Dirk replied, greeting him with both a kiss and a soft punch to the shoulder. He took a seat in the front row while Jake stood up in order to tidy all the gear he'd used throughout the presentation. "I'm still not sure I understand what an analysis is though."

"Very funny. So how fast did you drive to get here?"

"I think I broke every law in the book."

"You're all talk, Strider. I'll bet you've never even had a single speeding ticket."

"Hey, I've got a record. Three parking tickets and a DUI from '91."

"Mmhmm," Jake turned around long enough to raise an eyebrow, calling Dirk out on his blatant bullshit.

"Okay, so there's more."

"How much more?"

"Enough."

"How the blazes is that an answer?"

"Because if I haven't told you about it by now, it's probably shit no one needs to know."

"Stop being such a bonehead and just tell me what you did as a young delinquent!"

"It was less DUI and more DU-hella influences and I spent the night locked up, for starters." 

"I'm very impressed by your brushes with the law," Jake said far too sarcastically for comfort. "But hold this, would you?"

Dirk stood back up to take the crate of containers off his hands. He lifted one off the edge of the stage and down onto the chairs out of the way. 

"Told you that you didn't need to know."

"Oh, pshaw! You're telling me all about it later," Jake grinned. 

"Okay, look. All I'm telling you is I dropped some acid then tried to drive home but never made it because there was a fucking dragon blocking the highway exit."

"Now you're just pulling my leg."

"I was arrested for being a public nuisance." 

"Golly!" 

"That's all you're getting," Dirk said. "Actually, no. It also involved a sword and what turned out to be less of a dragon and more of a broken down school bus. Now I'm done. When do you finish here?"

"I'm done with presentations but I've got some paperwork to do. You're welcome to join me if you like," Jake said, ignoring the details Dirk had clearly added on to make the story sound more impressive than your standard LSD-fueled university-days fuck up. He stacked the last few boxes of leftover resources and shifted them to the edge of the stage for easy access later on. Someone else would come in and put them away eventually. 

"Nah, I paid to get into this zoo so I might as well check out the gorillas."

"Well that's dull."

"Dude, gorillas are the shit. They think they're people." 

"Please, Dirk, do educate me about large primates. I've never known much about them!" Jake feigned. He braced himself with one hand on the edge of the stage and jumped down onto the floor, indicating for Dirk to follow him out of the building. 

"Shit yeah, I'll get on that." 

"No, I'm hardly joking around here. Gorillas were never quite my area of expertise. They're too much like people and I find it baffling." 

"What the hell did you even major in then?"

"Which time?" Jake asked. He paused by the door to unsnag his shorts pocket from the handle. He wasn't sure how that had happened but it had and there was no way he was going to tear another pair of work shorts just because of a misplaced step. He locked the door and checked the handle twice before they started off towards administration.

"What do you mean which time?"

"Cheese and fucking crackers, Dirk! You spent an inordinate amount of time staring at the qualifications on my wall last time you visited me in sunny California! Are you telling me you just looked at the frames and decided that was enough?" Jake gestured wildly, flailing his hands in vague irritation. Dirk pulled him aside by the elbow to prevent him from accidentally smacking a small child in the face. 

He knew exactly what qualifications Jake had. It was just more fun to wind him up about it all.

"Hey, I don't know how college works in your home country. Here in the good ol' US of A we consider ourselves lucky to get one degree. Keep the population dumb by making that shit unaffordable for most kids and you've got a generation too fuck backwards to realise what's going on around 'em until it's too late," Dirk replied. Jake seemed to be struggling to clip his keys back onto his belt loop but he knew if he said anything he'd just get an even more frustrated response. 

"Well that explains why you're not very bright." 

"Hey, uncalled for."

"Tell me then, are you using your major?"

"I'm using my minor." 

"That's not the same thing."

"Are we really having this discussion?"

"You started it, mate. I'm just finishing it. Three bouts of higher education trumps a single undergraduate degree." 

"I got a fucking _engineering_ degree."

"And how many bridges have you built with that?" 

Dirk was momentarily taken aback by the rapid-fire responses Jake was throwing at him. He was sure they'd had this exact conversation before but he couldn't remember how it ended. Jake picked up on his brief hesitation and seized the opportunity, diving in headfirst to continue with his winning argument. 

"Well?" Jake challenged.

"I build so many bridges, you don't even know. Dude, there are literally bridges everywhere named after me. At _least_ twelve of 'em and when I die, you can bet your sweet ass that Dirk Strider Memorial Bridges will pop up all over the fuckin' country."

"You use your degree to make puppets." 

"And bridges. I built the Brooklyn Bridge." 

"Oh, codswallop! It was built something like a century before you were even born." 

"No it wasn't, I built it. My sick rhymes funded it." 

"Stop your prattling already if you want an answer," Jake said. He looked up as they passed the seal tank but kept walking - he'd already seen it a handful of times that morning and he did have other work to get done before he could leave for the day, after all.

"I don't really want one."

"Well you're getting it, since you clearly never paid attention to anything on the walls of my house."

"Hey, I remember that photo you've got, the one of you as a goofy kid standing beside the hellbeast," Dirk pointed out. That one had come to mind first because he'd spent so much time staring at it when he was at Jake's, trying to work out exactly how old he'd been when it was taken. 

"I find it terrifically worrying that you've spent so much time observing that one particular photograph of me as a lad."

"Why have you kept it for so long if you don't want people to stare at it?"

"Because it's the best picture I've got of Halley, you imbecile. You think I like staring at my own boyish face for the hell of it?" Jake asked. "Most of the old photos are back across the Atlantic, I'm afraid."

"Nothing wrong with that face, if you ask me."

"You certainly are a charmer, but you're also trying to distract me from winning this argument."

"Fine. Woo me again with your academic prowess, English," Dirk said, nudging Jake with his elbow as they walked.

"Bachelors in Biology, Masters of Veterinary Science and a PhD in Zoology. I am clearly the winner of this particular competition."

"Yeah, well, I've got six albums and a vaguely successful career under my belt at this point."

"That's not impressive, and EPs don't count. You stand on a stage in your ridiculous glasses and you recite poetry to music."

"Sounds almost like a legit career when you put it like that," Dirk mused. 

"Most of your songs are about, or from the perspective of, any number of your puppets."

"What of it?"

"You're a misplaced idol of the modern age," Jake said simply. "People give you attention for acting like a raving madman."

"And yet they willingly throw cash at me for it."

"You're not helping your own cause here."

"Hey, the cash of the youth pays for me to haul ass around the country after you," Dirk pointed out. 

"You don't have to, you know."

"What?"

"It's rather exhausting, don't you find?"

"Whoa, slow down," Dirk said. He had to grab Jake's elbow when he took the request too literally and stopped off to the side of the path, expecting the conversation to continue there. "We talked about this like a year ago, man. There aren't exactly many other options here."

"Well, there are, but they're all bloody awful," Jake sighed. He let Dirk direct him back down the main zoo walkway towards administration because he knew he still had work to finish before he could leave. He knew it, but he hadn't remembered it. He had paperwork to fill out and new information to add into the zoo database, and it all had to be done before he left because it was Friday and he had other work to do on the Saturday before his stint in Ottawa was over. "Are there really no other dadblasted choices?"

"Where's all this even coming from?"

"What do you mean where's this coming from? You're thick, but you're not that thick, mate. It's been a whopping two months since I last saw you and now we get three days to make up for that. Three flipping days! Not even three days, since Friday is half over and I have a flight at three in the afternoon on Sunday. Two months comes down to a matter of about thirty six hours which unfortunately includes the hours when I should jolly well be sleeping!" Jake exclaimed. 

Dirk had tuned out a little partway through his rant because he'd heard it all before and knew how it ended. He knew that if he didn't let Jake get it out that he'd be on edge for the rest of the weekend, which would in turn ruin the few hours of free time they did have.

"How's this trip different to any of the others? Just get your shit done and then we'll get out of here."

"You're not listening, Dirk. I don't like this arrangement. It's useless."

"Look, we'll talk this shit over later. Just go do your job, there's a fuckton of things I can do around here to kill a few hours," Dirk said. He could see that Jake was beyond just irritated with the situation but he knew what was going to come next if he didn't somehow draw the conversation to a close. 

"Sorry. There's a penguin feeding in about ten minutes," Jake mumbled. He ran a hand through his hair and straightened his glasses, then thought the better of it and removed them from his face to clean the lenses. "You should watch that. I've got a big cat afternoon feeding demonstration a half hour after that."

"I could watch a lion tear apart a goat carcass," Dirk said thoughtfully. "Do you throw it in whole?"

"Afraid not, mate. Don't make a nuisance of yourself," Jake said. He raised a hand to pat Dirk's chest a few times as a goodbye, then turned around to fumble with the keys on his belt out of sight. It took three tries to get the clip to unhook itself from his shorts.

"Hey, what do you mean by that you asshole?"

+++

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ghostyTrickster [GT] at 6:29 --

TG: hey bro  
TG: you home from school yet  
TG: guess not  
TG: how was school btw  
TG: ill tell you how school was today in new york  
TG: it wasnt  
TG: thats right i got a day off  
TG: my uncle fucked off to nowheresville and left us home alone  
TG: like were real adults now or some shit  
TG: the point is that i got a day off school and you had to slave away in gym and math and lunch  
TG: oh wait lunch is your favorite period  
TG: haha  
TG: im hilarious fuck you  
TG: bro seriously i can see you online youre doing this shit on purpose now  
TG: egbert for someone whos supposed to be my best friend youre doing a shitty job right now  
TG: youre supposed to say well fuck me sideways theres a real life 80s movie happening out in ny right now  
TG: dave lalondes day off  
TG: man the hijinks me and my sister got up to today  
TG: id blow your fucking mind if i told you everything  
TG: exciting shit  
TG: we had dino nuggets for lunch   
TG: jaspers took a dump beside his litter tray because hes the devil incarnate  
TG: i think we saw a possum  
TG: man shit is going off in the woods right now  
TG: its going off like you wouldnt believe  
GT: oh my god dave shut up!   
TG: oh hey john  
TG: whats up  
GT: not our friendship points!  
GT: what i'm saying is you're not my best friend.  
TG: harsh  
GT: i keep telling you that and you never believe me.  
TG: who wouldnt want to be my best friend  
GT: anyone who's ever met you ever. you're a douche.  
TG: youre breaking my fucking heart here egbert  
TG: better throw out those matching necklaces i got us for your birthday  
TG: no gift for you this year  
GT: why don't you go and cry about it to your best friend?  
GT: oh wait, you don't have one!  
TG: now whos the douche  
GT: was that too far?  
TG: nah man were best friends all good  
GT: whatever. school was okay. i got a b in music today! dad wasn't too happy about that.  
TG: nah man a b means youre kicking ass  
TG: ill send over a squad of cheerleaders  
TG: is that what theyre called  
TG: a squad  
GT: well, i kind of deserved it. i only did half the assignment because i never wrote out the theory so i got a b even though i scored almost top of the class in practical.  
TG: well fuck john why didnt you say so  
TG: im revoking your squad of personal cheerleaders  
TG: thats right no cheerleaders for you  
TG: they probably wouldnt cheer for a dork like you who gets bs in music anyway  
TG: cheerleaders are reserved for guys like me who get as in gym  
GT: you've never had an a in gym ever!  
TG: oh yeah  
GT: yeah, you have no friends and you're weak.   
TG: im faster than youll ever be  
GT: bullshit!   
TG: i came second in state track championships this year  
GT: yeah, well, i got a b in music!  
TG: awesome  
TG: still not worthy of your own cheerleaders though  
TG: i gotta go i think the pizzas here  
TG: billy gets pissed if we dont answer the door because it takes him twenty minutes to drive out here and another twenty back  
TG: were the reason they got rid of that more than thirty minutes and its free rule  
TG: true story  
TG: my uncle used to drag dead trees onto the road to stall the pizza guy  
TG: even more true story  
GT: oh my god dave! just get out of here.  
TG: later

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ghostyTrickster [GT] at 6:49 --

"Rose! Pizza!" Dave slammed his MacBook shut and threw it down onto the couch at his feet. He pushed up from the plush sofa, adjusted Paul on his shoulder, and snatched up a fifty dollar note from the coffee table. He heard noises from the top of the stairs, doors closing and opening again, in response to his shouting. With the lizard perched precariously by his ear, he was more careful about vaulting over the back of the couch than he usually would have been.

The pizza was late - it was almost seven - but it was a Friday night and they had only ordered it an hour and a half earlier. It wasn't the longest they'd ever had to wait for takeout delivery but that hadn't stopped Dave from scrounging up a few leftover dinosaur chicken nuggets from lunch forty minutes after ordering. 

"Hey," he said, swinging the front door open. 

"Don't you check for axe murderers?"

"Nah," Dave said, swapping the fifty for the pizza and soda, plus his change. "Maybe you should tell your boss not to hire axe murderers to deliver his pizza." 

"That's a big snap from a puny kid."

"Later, Billy."

"See you round, man," Billy said, pocketing the fifty. Dave spun on his heel and kicked the door shut behind him. He adjusted the pizza and lifted his shoulder when Paul felt like she was slipping, balancing the box in one hand. 

Rose was waiting in the living room when he returned, glasses ready beside a stack of paper napkins. He slid the box onto the coffee table, passed her the bottle, and sunk down to the floor.   
"You got pepperoni," he stated. 

"Only on half."

"They put it everywhere."

"They didn't."

"This is the worst day of my life, Rose," Dave said. He let the pizza box lid fall closed again and shifted to lean in closer to the table. "It's worse than the time we had that flash flooding and I lost my old skateboard in the river."

"That was your own fault for leaving it outdoors in winter."

"I didn't expect the river to suddenly decide it had a taste for boards," Dave said, hunched over his slice as he picked off the pepperoni rounds. 

"You got a new set-up the next day, I can hardly see why that's a bad thing." 

"Maybe I'll go hurl your violin out the window and see how you like it." 

"Honestly, I wouldn't mind," Rose shrugged, sliding a glass of soda across the table for her brother. "I don't think I really enjoy it anymore. It feels like a chore to practice so often more than anything else. Perhaps you could accidentally dispose of it out the window next time we have an argument?"

"Yeah, I can do that."

"Thank you."

"Oh my fucking God, there's more under the cheese," Dave groaned. He dug a fingernail into the oozing cheese and dragged out the pepperoni he'd half-mangled with his teeth. He briefly thought about feeding it to Paul but there was no way she'd enjoy it if he didn't, so he discarded it into the box with the rest. "Hey, but you love your violin shit, don't you?"

"I think I always tolerated it more than enjoyed it. Now I dread having to pick it up. I've mostly been using it as a rather ornate paperweight lately," Rose explained. Her pizza seemed to be fine and she spoke between mouthfuls of the suspiciously still-sturdy crust. "I doubt Mom will mind."

"Probably not. Bro might. I think he thought we'd all be some weird ironic side-project of his one day," Dave said. "Last week he actually told me that shit I did with the Katy Perry mix was _good_."

"I still refuse to believe he likes her music unironically."

"I think he does? I mean, we were strifing at the time so he was probably trying to throw me off, but he finally put a CD player in his roving shitbox around the same time her album came out and that sure as _fuck_ isn't a coincidence," Dave said. Rose arched an eyebrow in response, chewing thoughtfully while she digested the new information. "Like, it could be, but who the fuck else on the planet waited until last year to put a CD player in a car made in the 80s?"

"Did he say it was good or did he say he liked it?"

"He actually used the word 'good'."

"Shit."

"Yeah. Hey," Dave grinned, choking as he swallowed his half-chewed mouthful of pizza too quickly; he washed it down with a large chug of soda. "Hey, so if we were in some shitty ironic family band thing, who would Mom be?"

"It's hard to tell. She could easily be the one organising everything behind the scenes one minute and a screaming, drunken fan the next."

"A hip-hop remix band with strings gets screaming, drunken fans?"

"Music got weird lately, in case you haven't noticed."

"I noticed, but I don't think Bro did. He's still just doing his own shit. Like, he's starting to get famous but if you asked any serious rapper who he was, they'd just shrug and tell you to fuck off," Dave said. 

"And you're curious as to why a grown man having rap-offs with puppets live on stage has only just caught on in mainstream?"

"Honestly, with shit as weird as it is right now he'd fit right in. Have you seen any of the shit Lady GaGa rocks up to interviews in?"

"A valid point, little brother. Feed your lizard."

"She's fine," Dave said. "I'll give her some crickets later."

It was the first dinner they'd had without at least one adult hanging around and it took them until the pizza was almost gone before they figured out exactly what wasn't sitting quite right. The bottle of soda slipped across the table from one hand to another without being intercepted by their uncle, and without their mother there talking to everyone while she ate - including the crockery - it was unusually quiet. Neither of them was going to be the first to point out how unsettling it was, but when Dave found an opportunity to force things into a more normal arrangement, he took it. 

"Hey, what if I wanted that last slice?"

"You've had over half the pizza, Dave. I'm fairly certain I'm entitled to my quarter."

"You should've fucking asked!"

"You should have asked before eating the majority of our dinner on your own," Rose countered.

"Evil bitch," he mumbled, deliberately loud enough for her to hear. She smiled as he pounced forward to snatch up his phone from the table. 

"And what exactly are you doing?" 

"None of your fucking business."

"Dave," Rose warned. She knew exactly what he was doing. She wasn't sure if he knew that she'd caught on already, so she sat back and let him create his own drama to tide them over for the rest of the evening. If nothing else, it was entertaining. "Who are you calling?"

"Bro."

"And what will that achieve?"

"It'll achieve me telling him that you're a pizza stealing bitch," Dave snapped. "I swear, if you crashed your car and died I'm going to piss on your grave," he snarled, forcefully tapping the screen to end the call when no one answered. He dialled again and put the phone on speaker mode. 

"Hmhph," a voice mumbled.

"Mom, Rose stole the last slice of pizza and she's being a smug bitch about it."

"Davey? What's on fire, baby?"

"Nothing. Rose is an evil hellbitch, tell her to quit it."

"It's after midnight, honey, Momma's sleeping. Science in the morning. Lots and lots of science," Roxy mumbled. 

"At least tell her off or something."

"Stop it, Rosie."

"You didn't even mean that."

"'m sleeping, baby."

"Can't you see that she's going against everything we fucking stand for in this family?"

"Don't say fuck or I'll fly back home and slap you across the head. Who's in charge when no one else is home?"

"Oh my God, never mind," Dave said. 

"Dave, tell me. Who's in charge when the adults aren't home?"

"Are we counting Bro as an adult?" 

"David Roxanne Lalonde, you answer your mother."

"Please tell me that's not my fucking name," Dave gagged. 

"I don't even know, baby, I really don't know."

Rose tried to stifle a giggle from her place at the other end of the coffee table. Neither of them had any real idea what their middle names were because every time they were in trouble, Roxy would pick something that seemed embarrassing at the time to shout at them. She claimed to have forgotten the names written on their birth certificates which was, for the most part, understandable. Giving birth usually involved copious amounts of drugs. Roxy was confident that Rose was named Rose, but no one could remember whether or not Dave was actually a David. 

"Can't you just get a copy of my birth certificate or something?"

"What, and ruin the mystery? Who's in charge?"

"What? No, don't make me say it, Mom, it's lame."

"Dave," Roxy warned, dragging out his name almost to the point of whining. 

"Cal," Dave conceded with a heavy sigh. 

"Hell yeah, Cal's in charge. Go ask Cal to sort it out."

"What happens if Bro goes away and takes Cal with him while you're still away? Who's in charge then?"

"Jaspers, duh. I'll talk to you tomorrow, Momma needs her some sleep."

"Thanks for nothing," he said bitterly.

"Love you too, baby," Roxy mumbled.

Dave disconnected the call and dropped his cell onto the carpet beside him. He reached wordlessly for his glass and drained the remaining soda before finally turning to Rose, ignoring the smug grin on her face that only widened as he started to speak. 

"I'm not asking Cal for anything."

"But you like Cal. You think he's awesome."

"No he's not, he's terrifying." 

"You're not _scared_ of puppets, are you?" 

"No! Just Cal. Sometimes. Shut up," Dave muttered, trailing off towards the end of his comment and turning back to a rerun of _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ that had just started on tv. They fell silent until the commercial break, when Rose was the first one to speak. 

"I always did find it odd that you take so many photographs of yourself with everything under the sun, yet I've never seen a single one of you and Cal. I don't know why I never noticed your complete aversion to him before now." 

"I hate every member of this fucking excuse for a family," Dave snapped. "Except you, I love you," he added, turning his head towards Paul, who was still sitting happily on his shoulder. He reached up to scratch the flat of her head and blow her a kiss. 

Rose rolled her eyes. Perhaps, if she got back upstairs while her brother was still occupied with the tv, she'd move Cal from their uncle's bedroom and into Dave's. Or even into the bathroom. That sounded like a good plan. On second thought, his bedroom was probably a better option. She'd already had to clean up a bathroom after her cat that afternoon and there was no way she was going to do the same for her twelve year old brother, not when he should have learnt long ago to always triple check a room before assuming it was safe.


	13. [I5]: Sing-A-Longs In The Living Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dirk and Rose bond over a love of pop music.

**May, 2008**

In many ways, Rose was similar to her mother. They were both brilliant but compulsive, eager to learn anything that came their way. Roxy had done her best to keep their relationship open and loving and had gone out of her way to share her interests with her daughter. Rose had picked up on that and had taken the obsession with magic and wizards to heart. 

In other ways, she was more like her uncle. Rose and Dirk were both more practical in their approach to problems where Roxy dove in headfirst and called it scientific exploration. They were both clearly Ravenclaws, Roxy had argued. That had started a heated debate that went on for months. Dirk argued he was more of a Slytherin kind of guy and Roxy had laughed and told him that sure, maybe in another life, but from where she was standing, she was stuck living with two Ravenclaws and a Gryffindor (Dave had protested and asked for a re-sorting. Roxy had vehemently denied his request).

If there was one thing Dirk had hoped to pass on to both Dave and Rose more than anything else, it was his taste in music. Dave had picked it up easily and wasn't fussy. Dirk had bought him an iPod and filled more than half of the 80GB storage before he even asked if there was anything specific Dave wanted on there. Rose was more selective. She shot down most of his favourite bands in favour of more current releases. 

She did, however, share his love for shitty pop music. He was thirty six and still had no idea if he genuinely liked the stuff or if he only liked it for some twisted ironic reason.

Not that it mattered that summer. He had absolutely no shame when it came to dancing around the living room with his twelve year old niece. 

He wouldn't say it in any interviews or put it up on his blog, but he never gave out personal information anyway. There were advantages to living in the woods and the major one was that no one actually knew where he lived. All his contacts went through Houston. He didn't need it out on the internet that he'd spent most of his time off that summer singing along to _I Kissed A Girl_. 

He'd never done things by halves and sing-a-longs were no exception. He hooked up his iPod to the surround sound and went through his office to drag out some old microphones. While Dave had always shown an interest in his work and had even started playing around with sound files on the computer, Rose just liked the catchy tracks and she couldn't have picked a catchier one to play non-stop for three weeks. 

He liked the particular kind of irony that came with the Katy Perry hit. He could count on one hand the girls he'd kissed and he'd been pretty impartial about the whole experience. Impartial or hammered, it was definitely one or the other. The message wasn't so bad either, he usually took the 'don't knock it until you've tried it' route in life so he could wholeheartedly agree with that much. It was your stock standard pop song but he loved every cringeworthy, ironic second of those sing-a-longs more than he could put into words.

He was pretty sure that for Rose, there was nothing ironic about it at all.


	14. [A2A4]: do we have to watch the first four to get saw v?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dave is a shit at the grocery store, the kids talk internet friends, and everyone watches nightmare-inducing films together.

**May, 2009.**

"Can we go home yet?" 

"Did you seriously just whine at me, dude?"

"No, I just asked if we can go home," Dave said. 

Sure, the question had come out a little whinier than he'd planned for it to, but at the same time Dave didn't care. Dirk had dragged them both away from their laptops over an hour earlier and herded them into his Camry before Roxy got as far as skinning them all alive for crimes against her electricity bill. She had no idea how they'd managed to cause her account balance to spike in a house where the heating was constantly set to seventy degrees for eight months out of the year. She'd only been gone for two weeks.

"Does it look like we're done here?"

"I dunno," Dave shrugged. He finally looked up from his cell phone and realised they were in the middle of the cereal aisle at the grocery store. He hadn't really been paying much attention to anything beyond the point where he'd jumped up onto the railing of the shopping cart bay, swung off the sign, and used the leverage to maneuver himself into the cart his uncle had just released from the rest. At some point, both Rose and Dirk had started stacking the groceries both around and on top of him. He shifted a few items and moved his legs, pulling his knees up to his chest. A bottle of orange soda rolled towards the other end of the cart. "Can we get Wendy's on the way home?"

"Nah."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm an asshole," Dirk said. He laughed at the pitiful scowl Dave threw his way and reached for the large box of Lucky Charms. "Well, that and I'm still pissed at you for calling me last week to tattle on your sister." 

"You didn't pick up!"

"You interrupted me."

"What were you even doing?"

"Having dinner with the fucking President."

"Liar." 

"My producer, then," Dirk lied, waving a hand dismissively. "And don't tattle on your sister. Shit's lame." 

"You are," Dave muttered. 

"Coming from he, the coolkid in the shopping cart wearing a pair of highlighter yellow novelty glasses because he broke _yet another_ pair of fuck-expensive shades." 

Dirk watched as Dave's eyebrows furrowed and disappeared behind the awful frames. It was probably a low blow, he realised after he'd said it, and not just for one particular reason. They'd managed to convince Roxy it was the first time he'd ever destroyed a decent pair though, so it was a lucky break there, no pun intended. 

"You asked him for Wendy's, didn't you?" Rose asked, coming into view as she walked back down the aisle to put two gallons of milk into the cart. Dave's head snapped up to look at her. "You've got the 'he said no' look."

"Damn, Rosie, how'd you tell? Half his face is hidden."

"Half his face is usually hidden. He only does that particular scowl when someone says he can't do something."

"Huh, he looked kinda like that when I said I wouldn't buy him a decent camera a few weeks back. And that wasn't even a no, it was a wait until Christmas," Dirk mused. "Might be onto something here."

"He's always done it."

"Neat."

"I'm sitting right here, you know," Dave pointed out. He clicked the lock button on his cell and forced it into his pocket.

"Shit, didn't see you under all the chips. Speaking of, get your ass out of the cart and make yourself useful," Dirk said. "We still need to hit up the frozen aisle and pick out a few token vegetables for the week." 

"No way, man. Rose lost cart privileges last year. I'm making the most of the time I've got left," Dave said, as if he'd been mortally offended by the suggestion. 

"Rose didn't lose cart privileges, Rose stopped giving a shit," Rose snapped. "Can we please just hurry up and go home?"

"You're just mad because you left your phone in your room and you think Mom's gonna find it," Dave said. He slipped his own iPhone back out and flicked over to Pesterchum to check her status - it was still idle. He flipped it around long enough to show her as much, then tapped over to continue the conversation he'd been having earlier. "Man, John's still trying to convince me that Jade's his cousin. Dude can't let a joke go." 

"They are." 

"What?"

"They're actually cousins," Rose said, with less malice in her voice than earlier. Something about both knowing that her account was safe and being presented with an opportunity to prove her brother wrong had seemed to pacify her. "On John's fathers' side, I think. I'm not sure they fully understand their family tree, Jade got a little confused trying to explain it to me." 

"No fucking way!"

"Way." 

"Bullshit!"

"You're an idiot. Why do you think they always seem to show up in the same places at the same time?"

"Kind of like the way you can't help busting into my room while I'm on Skype with my best friend?"

"He's not even your best friend," Rose pointed out. She threw a box of Captain Crunch into the cart as well. 

"Hold up," Dirk interrupted. "You've got friends? If you'd told me that happened I would've picked up a cake or something."

"I hate you," Dave said. "They don't go to our school," he added in a mumble, punching out a reply to John. 

"Dude, you're talking to strangers on the internet? Not cool, man."

"You do it."

"Would _you_ want to fight me after midnight in an alleyway?"

"No, but I'm a kid and you're fat."

"That's it, get out of the cart," Dirk said bitterly. He came to a stop at the end of the aisle and refused to move until Dave did as he was told. "Out!" 

"What did I do?" Dave protested. He pushed aside the cereal boxes off of his lap and swung his legs up and over the side of the shopping cart. He dropped to the linoleum floor and almost had to jog to catch up when Dirk took off for the other end of the store. "Bro, hey! I didn't even do anything!" 

Rose smirked at him over her shoulder and picked up a carton of eggs to put in with the rest of the groceries. With Dirk's back turned, Dave gave up chasing them and flipped his sister off before stalking back down the cereal aisle to the front of the store. He slumped down on a bench there and loaded up his Pesterchum app. 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 11:57 --

TG: mom  
TG: hey mom  
TG: mom stop staring at your gandalf poster and answer your son  
TG: the son you love more than gandalf  
TG: i think  
TG: do you love me more than you love gandalf  
TG: mom  
TG: moooooom  
TG: lmao u no i luv gandalf more bby  
TG: my poster is SIGNED and FRAMED  
TG: yuo dont get that much love unitl you do sumthin worht framin 4 my wall  
TG: *you *until *worth  
TG: srory  
TG: *sorry  
TG: but whatevs yknow  
TG: whats up???  
TG: are you still mad about the electricity  
TG: nah  
TG: im pissed w/ th fact no1 wahsed any clohtes while i was gone tho  
TG: *washed *clothes  
TG: washing machines are stupid and bro just yells at them  
TG: like yelling at an inanimate object is going to make it realise oh shit im sentient  
TG: nice word choice!!  
TG: but no srsly im p pissed  
TG: sorry  
TG: r u  
TG: r u relay  
TG: *really  
TG: shit you discovered my secret i am totally a relay  
TG: smart ass  
TG: u almost on the way home  
TG: not yet bros taking his time and rose is being smug because he likes her better and he wont take us to wendys  
TG: what did u do???  
TG: i dunno he just made me get out of cart and walked off  
TG: rose hanging off his arm because oh look at me being his favorite while you fuck up again  
TG: whoops while you heck up again i mean  
TG: nice save  
TG: thanks  
TG: welcome  
TG: but u no favorites is dumb rite  
TG: i dont have a favorite  
TG: good because im pretty sure moms arent supposed to have favorite kids  
TG: at least theyre not supposed to tell their kids they have favorites  
TG: nah u both suck  
TG: ahaha  
TG: j/k :*    
TG: a plus parenting skills mom  
TG: luv u 2 davey  
TG: just say ur sorry + bring me back sum fries  
TG: theyll be cold and soggy  
TG: weve got an oven

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 12:09 --

Dave scowled again and sunk further down on the wooden bench. He closed Roxy's Pesterchum window and skipped back over to his conversation with John and picked up where they'd left off earlier. He knew how he was going to apologise to his uncle but he had to wait for the opportunity to present itself and that wasn't going to happen until Dirk finished looping the store. 

It took almost fifteen minutes for Dirk and Rose to emerge from the depths of the grocery store, the shopping cart filled with enough food for the week plus an obnoxious amount of crap for the movie marathon they had planned - Dirk had set up the downloads before they left the house. He already had a few films saved to his hard drive, but they needed the full series for a marathon.

Dave slipped his phone away and sat, arms folded, in case either of them looked up. They didn't, but he wasn't about to forget everything he'd ever learnt about self-preservation. He watched as they stood at the checkout, Dirk tossing items up onto the belt while Rose leaned on the cart handle to watch, occasionally picking up a bottle that rolled into reach. He waited while his uncle swiped a credit card. He grew impatient while they took their time reloading the groceries into the cart. When Rose pushed it forward for Dirk to steer out into the parking lot, Dave finally made his move. 

Distracted by the conversation with his niece, Dirk didn't notice the light squeaks of Dave's sneakers travelling far too quickly across the grocery store floor. He used the momentum from his run-up to jump onto the edge of a check-out counter and from there he dove forward again, latching his arms tightly around his uncles' neck. 

"Jesus fucking Christ, kid! What the fuck are you doing? On what planet was that a good idea because I can promise you now, it sure as fuck isn't this one, you complete shit. Get off me." 

Dave ignored Dirk's outburst and pushed down on his shoulders to help him swing his legs up and around his uncles' waist. He held on through a few attempts to shake him off and only clung more tightly in response. 

"Sorry," he mumbled, the apology more than a little sincere. He didn't know what he'd done but he wanted to apologise for it anyway. 

"'s okay, little dude. Think you could loosen up a little there though? You're kinda crushing my larynx," Dirk said. He coughed a few times when Dave's arms let go just enough for the air to flow back into his lungs.

"Sorry," Dave said again. Rose went out of her way to ensure that they both saw the obnoxious eyeroll she aimed in their direction. 

"What, you want in, Rosie?" Dirk asked.

"No," she said indignantly as they approached the car. There was nothing she could think of in that moment that she wanted less than to join her brother and uncle in their usual idiocy. As if him even asking wasn't embarrassing enough, she still had to suffer through the drive home in his car. 

The vehicle was almost ten years older than she was and wherever he went in it, he attracted the wrong kind of attention because he insisted on adding more and more bumper stickers to it every year. 

The rear of the '89 Camry was more stickers than bumper and Dirk wasn't fussed by exactly what the stickers said. A few months earlier someone had stopped them in a parking lot and asked what exactly his deal was, and he'd had to explain that having an I Voted For Obama sticker on the right and a Confederate flag on the left was ironic. The middle-aged woman who had asked seemed slightly offended, but Dirk had gone on to explain that it was a difficult life being so conflicted by your own views on the world that you needed to use the entire back end of your car as a form of artistic self-expression. 

"You sure?" Dirk asked, popping the trunk. "It's not weird at all to walk through parking lots with two preteens hanging off you, if that's what you're worried about."

"I'm not worried about that," Rose deadpanned. 

"So what's up?"

"Can I get in the car now?"

"Sure," Dirk said. He tossed her the keys and Dave watched over his shoulder as his sister unlocked and climbed into the car. "What's up her butt?"

"One of her friends got busted talking to her at school and lost internet privileges for like a week."

"So can't she just see her at school?"

"Nah, it's GA."

"Who?"

"GA, she's from the UK and goes to some fancy-ass boarding school. She's like Rose's best internet friend."

"Kinda like you and that John kid?"

"Nah, he says we're not best friends but whatever, he's lame anyway. But that happened like two days ago so Rose is still real pissed," Dave continued. 

"Explains why she's keen to get back to her phone," Dirk said. He slammed the trunk closed again when all the groceries were packed inside and spun the shopping cart around to walk it back to the bay. "You got many other friends like that?"

"What, internet ones?"

"Yeah. You've got the John kid, who's the cousin you two were on about before?"

"That's Jade, she's nice. She's got narcolepsy."

"Huh, right on. Anyone else?"

"Yeah. There's some other guys I talk to when I'm bored. Mostly CG but he's an asshole. He lives in New York City though so I told him one day I'm going to find out where he lives and then go down there and punch him in the face."

"Want me to track his IP for you?"

"Nah, he says he'll never tell me but I'll find out," Dave said. When they got back to the car he let go of Dirk's neck and slid back down to the ground, stumbling a little on the asphalt before he found his footing. 

"Find out what?" Rose asked. 

"Where CG lives," Dave replied from the backseat. He slammed the door just hard enough to cause his uncle to turn around and glare at him until he held up his hands apologetically. He leant forward between the two front seats as Dirk slipped the car into reverse, earning himself a slap to the back of the head for his trouble. He sunk back into the seat properly and buckled himself in, the car finally moving when he did. 

"New York City."

"Duh, I mean like his actual address, so I can go there and punch him for being an asshole."

"Oh, no, I don't have his address," Rose said. She opened the glove compartment and started flipping through the small pile of CDs that now lived there, trying to find anything that wouldn't have them all fighting for the entire drive home. "Why do you have Taylor Swift?"

"It's your mom's."

"Why's it in your car?"

"Dave likes it."

"I do not! I don't." 

"What did Taylor Swift ever do to you? She's like the ultimate all-American girl next door, kid. Educate yourself," Dirk said. 

"Madonna?"

"Legend."

"50 Cent?" 

"Also a legend. Stop shitting all over my CD collection and pick one," Dirk said. He put the car in first and started driving towards the exit. 

"Mom wants fries," Dave said from the backseat, already buried in his iPhone again. "I told her you wouldn't take us to Wendy's and she said she wanted some. I think she's drunk."

"God dammit, we've only been gone for an hour and a half," Dirk muttered, swinging the car into a sharp u-turn on the main road. He'd been trying to make a point in rejecting Dave's earlier request for take-out, a life lesson of sorts, but he knew better than to turn up home without the greasy snack if Roxy was more than half a martini into an afternoon binge.

+++

"What the hell ish the poin' of this movie?"

"Shh, don't question it."

"Don' tell me wha' I can 'n can' question," Roxy snapped from her place beside Dirk. 

When they all arrived home from the store, everyone stumbling up from the garage with arms full of grocery bags, they had found Roxy sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open. At some point, she'd explained slowly, she'd been working. But the more she stared at the badly rendered 3D models and her own documents full of bullshit, the less sense everything made. To no one's surprise, she spoke clearly despite her intoxication (when she had been awarded her PhD, back in '94, her speech had been delivered on half a bottle of vodka and she received a standing ovation for contributions to her field. No one in the audience noticed).

It had taken a grand total of ten minutes for the groceries to be put away, the kids to throw themselves on the couches, and for Roxy to devour the soggy fries after heating them for thirty seconds in the microwave. Dirk had returned from the basement with the first movie download completed and on a USB. He'd plugged it into the PS3, kicked Dave's feet out of the way so he could sit down, and loaded up the file. 

Ten minutes into _Saw_ and Roxy's work had been abandoned. She'd stumbled over to the living room and dropped down onto the couch next to her brother, who - wisely - didn't point out the fact that her martini glass was filled with nothing but vodka. Dave was already on the floor by then, lying on his back with his feet pressed into the cushion of Rose's couch. 

"You're not supposed to question it, it's a gorefest."

"I'm just saying, it's dumb," Roxy continued. "Super dumb."

"Yeah, whatever. Just you wait," Dirk scoffed. There was no way she was getting up in his face about this film. 

"Why? What's gonna happen?" Dave asked, tipping his head to face his mother and uncle rather than the screen. 

"Just watch. Y'all suck at watching movies," Dirk said. "Except Rose, Rosie's the best."

"It's not hard to be quiet and just watch the story unfold," Rose piped up for the first time since the movie had started. 

"What story? That's my poin'." 

"There is clearly a story happening here."

"Nah, there's isn't," Roxy said. "Rosie, honey, come over here 'n cuddle with Momma."

"That's not happening," Rose said. She made a minimal effort to not look as taken aback as she felt. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd willingly hugged her mother. It wasn't exactly a matter of dislike, she knew Roxy wasn't as bad as some mothers even if it did feel like she was trying way too hard to stay cool. It was just grating sometimes, that a forty year old woman could share interests with her thirteen year old daughter. Then again, her uncle was trapped in perpetual adolescence too so maybe it was a family thing. Either way, she had zero intentions of moving to the other couch. She flipped her cell phone over in her hand as she mentally prepared a spiel designed to get everyone off her back should they ask her again.

"Why not?"

"I'm trying to watch a movie."

"Nah, you're waitin' for someone to call, aren't'cha?"

"Oh my God, mother. No. No, God. I just want to watch the film."

"Sure you do," Roxy said, throwing Rose an obnoxious wink. "You jush take the call when it rings, okay?"

"Yes, of course," Rose said, the fingers of her free hand curling into the fine hair at the base of her skull.

"What is this, anywho? National everyone start textin' your bf day?"

"Ew, no," Dave said from the floor, pulling a face before turning back to the tv.

"Obvs not you, baby. But everyone elses is."

"I'm not even texting," Dirk pointed out, his comment only a vague approximation of the truth. 

If he was to be completely honest, which he never had been in the past and had no intention to be in the future, he wasn't texting. He was, however, on Pesterchum and anyone in the room could have seen that he was online if they bothered to look at their own accounts.

 _Saw_ was, hands down, ranked as one of his favorite horror films. He'd already seen it eighteen times and the plan had been to share as much of the franchise with the kids as he could before one of them hurled (Rose might seem the likely candidate, but he'd put money on Dave). Roxy giggling drunkenly against his shoulder had ruined any atmosphere that their remote location provided for his choice in movies to marathon, but he'd given up on actually watching the movie when his cell had buzzed ten minutes into the film. 

"You're messy, mess, talking to someone," Roxy said in a sing-song voice. She laughed and buried her head in the crook of his neck but, as odd a move as that was, he didn't flinch. "I know who," she said quietly. " _So_ not th' time 'n place."

"Shit's hella G-rated right now," Dirk said. He flipped the phone around to show Roxy the last few lines of Pesterlog, which consisted of Jake prattling off a list of vegetables that hadn't gone bad in the fridge while he'd been eating dinner at work for nearly a week. 

" _Eurgh_ ," Roxy balked loudly enough that the kids both dragged their eyes away from the screen to look at her. "Your uncle has frien's who eat spinach, like, for _fun_ ," she whispered dramatically.

"Get off me," he said, shoving her back to her half of the couch. She let him push her over, sinking back into the cushions behind her, giggles still escaping her lips. He rolled his eyes when she pulled out her own phone to finish what they had started.

\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 3:21 --

TG: yuore sooo lame!!!  
TG: *youre  
TG: laaaaaaame  
TG: soooo super laaaem!  
TG: *lame  
TT: Thanks, Rox. I always appreciate your input into my personal conversations.   
TG: youre talking abuot what vegetabels hes got in his refridgideraptor  
TG: *super chill raptor lmao  
TT: Watch me laughing.  
TG: yuore not  
TT: Funny how that works.   
TG: *le gasp*   
TT: Now who's lame?  
TG: touch  
TT: Huh?  
TG: *touche lol  
TT: Roxy.  
TG: dork  
TG: aint fixing that one lamo  
TG: *lmao  
TG: nah lamo was right  
TT: I'm going to make a phone call in ten minutes. In case one of them breaks while I'm gone, who's your money on?  
TG: dave  
TT: Dammit. Fine, I'll bet on Rose.   
TG: yuo hafta make macncheese if dave upchucks  
TT: Deal, but only if you let me have an uninterrupted ten minute conversation with the infuriating man-child of my dreams.  
TG: …  
TG: LMAO thats so f'in homo even 4 u  
TT: I get ten uninterrupted minutes on the phone and you get mac and cheese for dinner, regardless of the relative position of Dave's stomach contents.  
TG: deal  
TG: deal so hard

\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 3:28 --

"Mom?"

Roxy locked her phone and glanced up when Dave spoke. He was sitting on the couch with Rose, head hanging upside down over the arm to look at her. 

"Wassspup, baby?"

"You're spilling gin on the floor and Jaspers is drinking it," he pointed out. 

"Okay, two thin's," she started, setting down the near-empty glass on the coffee table. "Jaspy, honey, don't drink that 'cos it's not for kitties. That's one," she stood up, side-stepping the droplets on the carpet. "And two, Momma's drinkin' vodka today, sweetie." 

Rose snorted into her fist as their mother paused by the couch long enough to take Dave's head in her hands and tip it back to kiss his forehead.

"Yeah, expect your kid to know the difference," Dirk called after his sister as she staggered through to the kitchen in search of a cleaning cloth. 

"Whatever," she scoffed. "Don't you got a phone call to go make?"

+++

"Whoever it is, fuck off."

"But -"

"But nothing, it's like two in the morning."

"I can't sleep." 

Dirk sighed. The battle already won, Dave closed the door behind him and shuffled across the carpet through the darkness, pausing beside his uncles' bed. 

"Dude, you're twelve. Shit's weird."

"Where's Cal?"

"Huh? On his shelf, where else would he be?"

"Out murdering bitches."

"That's exactly what he does in his spare time," Dirk scoffed. "Ah, shit. The puppet."

"Yeah."

"You know where you are, right?"

"I figured if they were gonna kill me they would've done it before tonight," Dave said, shifting from one foot to the other, unable to be still even in his overtired and worked up state. 

"Get in," Dirk sighed. He felt the mattress shift as Dave climbed up and over him to get to the other side of the bed. 

"Thanks," Dave mumbled. He kicked the blankets aside long enough to crawl under them and turned over a few times in an attempt to get comfortable. 

"You right there?"

"No."

"What?"

"Nothing." 

"You know it's just a movie."

"I know. I was gonna go wake Rose up instead but she was already awake."

"Timezones?"

"Timezones."

Dave fell silent then, shifting once again to lie on his back. He knew it was the exact opposite of cool to go running to your uncle in the middle of the night, but he hadn't really seen many other options. 

Rose was still awake and he could have gone to her, but she was no doubt in the midst of a conversation that would land GA in weeks of detention when she was busted using her school's internet before breakfast. She would have let him sleep across the foot of her bed if he'd asked though, curled up with Jaspers in a knitted pile of half-finished scarves.

Roxy had gone to bed at eleven, halfway to sobering up, and he knew what would happen if he went to her at two in the morning. She'd drag him into bed with her and hold him close, tell him that nothing was going to murder him except perhaps the wolves, smother him with comfort and hugs and the smell of shampoo and alcohol. 

Despite his taste in decor, Dirk had been the safest option. 

"Dude," Dirk dragged out the word after reaching over to give a reassuring scratch at his nephew' hair. "Why're you sleeping in shades? There's literally zero light pollution out here in the sticks."

"Forgot about 'em," Dave mumbled. He didn't bother trying to fight the hand that plucked the glasses off his face. 

"Did you?"

"Yeah."

"Look, I gotta tell your mom, kid. I know you're gonna hate me for it but I'm feeding you too many pain meds as it is."

"It's not my eyes, fuck. I just forgot, okay?"

"Hey, watch your fucking language. If you're shit scared that waking up in a room without six layers of curtains is gonna screw with you, that's a problem."

"Bro, chill. I wear 'em all day, every day. Sometimes I forget to take 'em off, it's not a big deal," Dave snapped. He shifted onto his side, turning his back on his uncle. 

"It's a hellaciously big deal."

"No, it's a deal smaller than your mom's dick."

"Fuckin' burn," Dirk rolled his eyes in the dark room. "We need to get you off the internet once in a while."

"No way, man. How else am I supposed to spam your fanmail account?"

"Yeah, I never would have guessed that was you."

"That's not the only shit that's me," Dave said smugly. 

"You the asshole going around saying you know me and that I'm a douche?"

"I only did that one time."

"So you started everyone else off, thanks bro."

"No problem."

"So," Dirk started after another moment of silence. "You know I've got your chumhandle."

"Yeah."

"And literally every other social network URL that you use."

"Yeah, I don't care. I've got like ten YouTube subscribers now."

"Awesome. I know about your SoundCloud."

"I don't have a SoundCloud," Dave retorted. 

"Yeah, you do." 

Dave didn't have anything else to say to that, so he just pulled up the covers and buried his face in them as a way of drawing the conversation to a close. 

He'd been holding off on that one. After the Katy Perry mix he'd done a few weeks earlier, he'd started working on something else and had given himself a three month timeframe to get it done. That would leave him with plenty of time to tweak the track before it really needed to be finished.

There were snippets uploaded already, from when he'd asked CG for feedback the previous weekend. 

"Fuck off."

"Says the big man who's only here because he couldn't sleep without an adult to get his cuddle on with," Dirk snorted. 

"You'd think I would have linked it to Godhead if I wanted you to know about it."

It was Dirk who fell silent then. He couldn't think of anything else to say to that and instead of pushing the conversation, he reached over and picked up his cell from the bedside table. The screen lit up the room and while he was flicking through the clock settings he cocked his head to the side and watched as Dave dragged the pillow down to meet the sheets, blocking all the light from his eyes. 

"Alarm's set for eight so you can get back to your room before the lovely Lalonde ladies wake up and laugh at you for shitting yourself over Jigsaw."

"Mom doesn't wake up, she regains consciousness," Dave mumbled. He jerked his head away when his uncle made to ruffle up his hair again and shifted even further away from him. 

He didn't get up to leave though.


	15. [I6]: Dave Remixes Dirk's Latest Hit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dave gives an awesome birthday present.

**December, 2009.**

Dave thought it was pretty cool when his uncle had agreed to buy him a MacBook. He knew they were expensive and it was going to be a big deal when he asked for one, but it was only fair since Rose already had a laptop as well a new cell phone. Well, she had Roxy's old cell as her new one and he'd been given Rose's old one so he was stuck using a third hand iPhone, but that was okay. He just didn't like sharing the rec room computer anymore. He couldn't do anything cool with his mom or uncle hanging around all the time. 

So a week before he'd even planned to ask the question, he'd started doing nice things for everyone. He made sure to put his underwear in the laundry basket instead of leaving it on the bathroom floor. He left Paul in her tank instead of sitting her beside his plate over dinner. He didn't dive-bomb the couch to steal the remote, even though his uncle had already been watching the hockey for three hours and he was bored. 

That was pretty much the thing that got Dirk's attention. 

Dave didn't beg. He made his case. He stuck to the facts and pointed out he didn't want the really good one, just the good one, and that it would be wicked cool and that he'd totally been behaving for like three days. His uncle had talked to his mom and he'd waited impatiently for another three days for the verdict. 

No one ever gave him a full run down of how that conversation had gone.

All he got was an Apple box on his bed when he got home from school one afternoon.

That had been back in March. At first he'd just used it for Pesterchum and looking at YouTube videos like everyone else. He'd added in social media accounts as he came across them and started making friends there. It was a lot easier to do that sort of thing on a proper laptop instead of just on his phone. Well, Pesterchum was the same, just a little less glitchy than the app. 

He'd started playing around with Garageband for fun. He knew enough about music because of his uncle and he knew what sounded good and what didn't. He didn't have access to any other equipment because it was too hard to ask if he could borrow it without getting the third degree about his motivations. When Dirk had asked why he was being so shitty over breakfast one morning, he'd had to think of a lie that didn't involve him staying up until almost two in the morning trying to make a single looping track sound right. He said he wanted a drawing tablet because it was too hard to draw with a trackpad instead. 

Surprisingly, his mom bought him one later that week, no questions asked. He hadn't even needed to whine at her.

He'd had an idea since June. 

He was okay with everyone knowing the name he used for everything - turntechGodhead - because it meant he got their names in return. Rose's chosen handle made him a little uneasy for reasons he couldn't explain, but he thought it suited her. She was only a year older than him but he knew she was better at head games than he would ever be. He liked his mom's name. It was pretty perfect for her. He'd asked her what she was nostalgic for and she'd laughed and said that everything up until her marriage was pretty good. Then she'd spilled her drink and apologised over and over because of course she loved him, she hadn't meant it like that. His uncle had sat him down and lectured him about privacy before he gave up his own handle. He'd promised, in no uncertain terms, that he would end Dave if he told anyone outside the family what that name was. Dave didn't understand why at first.

2009 was the summer his uncle got famous. 

_Beatdown Round 2_ , his third full-length album, somehow ended up on the mainstream charts as soon as it was released. Dirk didn't have much of a production crew - he'd always preferred working on his own - but the few people he did have were as surprised as he was when the _The Ventriloquist's Valediction_ started getting major radio airplay.

It was a pretty good song. Dave didn't get it at first, because he had to look up half the words in it and even then he had to get Rose to clarify a few things. It was weird. Cal sung a lot of the songs on his albums and always had but something was different this time. It was creepy. It was intentionally creepy. The _Valediction_ told the story of how Cal had come to be, how he'd gone from living in Dirk's shadow to being the one who pulled the strings, literally. He was taking over. It was the last track on the album and that wasn't a coincidence. Dirk had something up his sleeve and no one knew what it was, but that was probably the single factor that pushed the track into the charts. Fear of the unknown. Something was coming. It was weird. People liked weird. 

Dave knew exactly what he wanted to give his uncle for his birthday that year. He was getting pretty good with Garageband. Not awesome, but that didn't matter so much. He was only twelve. He'd started by mixing together tracks that his family liked, or whatever was popular on the radio. They liked them. His uncle said they were pretty good and that was all the encouragement he needed. 

He wanted some help from CG, or at least some input, and it was easier to post sections of the track somewhere. If couldn't use the name Godhead unless he wanted to get caught, so he signed up for Soundcloud under the name of Knighttime. He thought it was clever. CG didn't. 

It took months to get it right. He stayed up late working on the remix night after night. More than once, Roxy had found him slouched over on his desk, headphones still over his ears and fast asleep. If she knew what he was doing, she didn't say anything. If anyone knew anything, they didn't bring it up. His uncle pointed out that he knew about the Soundcloud but he didn't mention anything about the thirty second snippets that were posted there. 

When Dirk's birthday finally rolled around, Dave presented him with a burnt CD featuring three different remixes of the _Valediction_ that he'd done himself. He'd thrown a couple of other mixes on there as well to bulk out the disk. He'd made his own cover art as well. His throwaway request for a tablet had come in handy after all and he was pretty sure he liked working on the cover just as much, if not more, than he'd liked mixing the tracks themselves. 

It was a pretty good birthday present. Better than pretty good, Dirk reassured him. Kick ass was what it was. Totally awesome. It was his favourite gift for the year, even better than the tacky sweater Rose had knitted for Cal but Dave wasn't supposed to repeat that aloud. There was no other thirty-eighth birthday gift in the history of thirty-eighth birthdays that was as cool as that CD. 

Dirk turned dialed back the praise when Dave started to get suspicious that he was only saying that to make him think he liked the gift. 

He figured it was all pretty genuine when he found the CD crammed into the glove compartment of Dirk's car.


	16. [A2A5]: i picked up two of everything at the liquor store

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the kids go to school, Dirk makes a call, and everything is typical family business.

**October, 2011.**

"And so, as you can see - well, you'd be able to see if you shut the hell up, jackass," Dave paused mid-sentence and waited for the kid in the third row to pipe down. He stared at him across the semi-darkened classroom, waiting until it got uncomfortable for everyone in the room before continuing. "As you can see," he repeated himself for emphasis. "My final slide provides a clear and concise summation of the reasons previously mentioned as to why I chose to opt out of this novel study." 

He leaned over to hit a key on the computer, pulling up more illustrations and graphs. He was proud of the graph. He'd put more time into it than most kids probably dumped into reading the novel in the first place, but he'd objected on moral grounds. He'd thought about claiming trauma but decided to save that in case a more dire situation arose later in the year. 

A few weeks earlier, when his English teacher had announced that their first text of the year was _The Hobbit_ , he'd begged for an alternate assignment. He was fairly sure that teachers spent their summers looking over class lists for the next year and he had couldn't understand why no other member of the faculty had warned the poor woman not to issue Dave Lalonde the impossible. 

He'd seen her after class when the text had first been distributed. She'd said something along the lines of proving why he was worthy of an exemption, and he'd pulled out all the stops. 

The powerpoint presentation had started out innocently enough. A brief history of Tolkien and his political views was enough of a dirty tactic to get his classmates to tune out and his teacher to tune in, before turning the tables six slides in. He won back half the class with a photo of his mother in her office and promptly lost them again when he zoomed in on the background. 

The rest of the presentation had gone downhill from there and devolved into a series of examples from his childhood where wizards had been more important than he was in the eyes of his mother. His favourite anecdote was the one where, at six years old, he'd been dragged out of bed at three in the morning so Roxy could be first in line for the release of _Order of the Phoenix_. 

"Thank you, Mr. Lalonde," the teacher said over a scattering of applause. Dave took a bow and sauntered over to his spot, lowering a pair of Aviators onto his face as the overhead lights flickered back to life. He put a hand down on the front of his desk and leapt over the table, twisting in the air to end up standing on his chair, facing the front of the room. He took another bow, more grand this time, before jumping to the floor so he could finally take his seat. "I'll consider your presentation for a grade."

"I've got a work log if you want it."

"With you?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, brandishing a stack of papers in her direction. "There's a media release form that my mom signed so I could use the pictures of her stuff, a bibliography of works cited or referenced in any way, shape, or form, and the log itself was witnessed by my sister and Paul."

"You got witnesses?"

"Yeah, I didn't think you'd believe I did the work if I said it, but you had Rose last year and I'm pretty sure you'd trust her, everyone does. Paul just witnessed because she felt left out," he explained, flipping over to the final page. "See?"

"You mean this ink smudge?"

"She doesn't have fingers, ma'am."

"Oh, well."

"She's got claws though, so I walked her over the inkpad."

"She - what?"

"Isn't your stupid lizard dead yet, Lalonde?" 

Sniggers from two rows behind him. He turned in his seat and just stared, blank-faced and mostly hidden by his shades. 

"Don't be retarded. Bearded dragons live for like fifteen years in captivity, you idiot. She's still gonna be alive for years."

"What'll you do, cry when it dies?"

"No, I'll throw her in a jar of isopropyl alcohol and put her on my shelf."

"Okay, enough! Mr. Lalonde, I'll take that," his teacher said, snatching the document out of his hand. "Right, grammar." 

Dave's presentation had been the last so despite the enormous effort he'd gone to in order to avoid reading the novel under his own free will, it had been forced down his throat through countless other slideshows for the last two periods. He'd spent the lessons before that planning out a new line of comics in the back of his workbook. 

It hadn't taken him long to figure out that this was going to be the dullest year of his life to date if he morally objected to every study. He'd do the next one, sure. But _The Hobbit_? No. It had been read to him enough times as a kid that he knew it almost word for word. He wasn't going to spend the first six weeks of the school year reading it again, especially when he could read the whole thing in an afternoon anyway. 

He could see the irritated look on his teacher's face from where he was sitting, but it wasn't because his presentation had caused a riot, or inspired anyone else to do the same. If anything, it had reaffirmed for everyone else, the kids he'd shared classes with since kindergarten, that he was a perfect example of why kids should never be raised more than half an hour away from civilization. 

He was hoping for an A - the media release might have been the thing to bump up the grade - but a B would be just as good. He'd settle for a B. 

The bell rang. Dave slid the pile of books off his table and slung the strap of his bag over his shoulder. He walked out of the room, head held high, and dodged every attempt someone made to shove him into the doorframe.

+++

"You're fuckin' dead, Lalonde." 

"Shit, no one told me," Dave snarked back. He scrunched up his jeans and threw them into his gym bag, exchanging them for a pair of shorts. He thought about leaving his regular shirt on - it was well below fifty degrees outside - but decided against it because less sleeve meant less shirt for anyone else to grab. 

"Go fuck yourself."

"Jealous you can't?"

Dave absconded before he needed to clarify the quip. Knowing his own luck, the idiot would take far too long to even process what he'd said, let alone realise it hadn't been the smartest retort, so he took off as quickly as he could and retreated to the safety of the teacher-supervised outdoors. 

There was nothing different about the instructions for the lesson. Track and field, rotate through the different stations and focus mainly on the field because in another week it would probably be under half a foot of slush and stay that way until late Spring. 

There was nothing they could do to convince him that diving into a pit of wet sand was a good way to pass the time so he hung around the track, starting over with each new group of classmates that trickled in from the other areas. By the fifth swap over whistle, he'd run the hundred meter stretch a dozen times and won every race.

He almost felt entitled to be annoyed that no one had set up the hurdles that morning. At least there was a challenge to those when he set them high enough. As it was, he settled for feigning twisted ankles and taking off in the last ten meters, or pausing by the finish line to give other kids the chance to catch up. In one leg he'd gone as far as backflipping over the line, to applause from a few students who deemed his efforts finally worthy of attention. 

He was still working on the flips. At the start of the school year, his uncle had told him to join the cheerleaders and be the most ironic kid to ever grace a football team with his pep. He'd declined that suggestion by not speaking to Dirk for three days. 

When the period was over he didn't bother to get changed again. He walked through the locker rooms, picked up his bag, and headed straight for the bus loop via his locker. 

"Nice shorts."

"Thanks, I like they way they show off my pasty thighs," he replied. 

"They are exceedingly pasty thighs," Rose agreed. She accepted the half-Pop Tart he'd broken off for her. They climbed up into the bus when it arrived and sat down halfway towards the back, Dave sliding in beside the window. 

"I'm pretty proud of them."

"You should be. How did your presentation go?"

"Aced it. I think she got the point."

"You did take the moral highground on this one," she nodded thoughtfully.

"Hey, you suffered through that book as many times as I did."

"Yes, but for me it fostered a lifelong fascination with magic instead of the emotional turmoil you took away from it," Rose said.

"Are we calling it emotional turmoil?"

"You had me notarise paperwork to help you get out of reading a children's novel."

"Whatever. What did you do today?"

"I'm only a year ahead of you."

"So the same boring and shitty stuff?"

"The exact same."

"You know, it's reassuring to have you tell me how shitty things are going to be a year before they happen," Dave said. He shoved the last corner of the strawberry Pop Tart into his mouth and reached into his bag for a can of deodorant. Rose arched an eyebrow from beside him. "Thirty seconds of this or an hour of me smelling like something Jaspers dragged in."

"Crack the window," she sighed. "You could have done that outside."

"I forgot," he said, shoving the can up under his shirt. "There, see? Problem solved."

"Not entirely," Rose said. "I can't get the image of your unbelievably pale thighs out of my mind."

"How fucking spectacular are they though? I should just wear gym shorts all the time."

"Please don't."

"Life ruiner."

Rose smiled as she slipped a novel out of her school bag and flipped it open on her knee. Dave swapped the deodorant can for his cell phone and loaded Pesterchum to see who was online. John still had three hours of school to get through so he was idle. He wouldn't be far off his lunch period though, so there was a chance of catching him during the trip home. 

He swiped over to iTunes and started up up the entire collection on shuffle, because he didn't know what he felt like listening to for the next hour. He took out the second Pop Tart and shoved it into his mouth, flicking back over to Pesterchum when the phone buzzed in his hand. 

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 3:06 --

CG: HEY ASSWIPE, HOW'S THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERESVILLE?   
TG: better than your shitbox apartment  
TG: just go home and get it over with   
CG: NO WAY. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY CAMPUS CLUBS MY FUCKING BROTHER JOINED? SIX. SIX CLUBS FULL OF ASSHOLES AS JUDGEMENTAL AND FUCK BACKWARDS AS HE IS.   
TG: he found his people man chill out   
CG: HE'S TWICE AS INSUFFERABLE NOW THAN HE WAS LAST YEAR.   
TG: just twice  
TG: thats nothing  
TG: doubling in assholery in less than a year is nothing  
TG: come back when hes at least quadrupled   
CG: *FINE*. DID SHE BUY YOUR SHIT IN THE BIBLIOGRAPHY?   
TG: doubt shell read it  
TG: like six people clapped  
TG: im a goddamn star  
TG: the comeback kid thats me  
TG: beloved once again by his peers   
CG: THEY PUMMELLED YOU, DIDN'T THEY?   
TG: not today

When the school year had started again, it was almost as if something had snapped with the kids in his grade. He'd never been popular - he pretty much fell at the opposite end of the scale entirely - but with his sister's year in another building, it was as if the gloves had come off and the other guys were set on giving him hell without the chance of her swooping in to save him.

It was mostly shoving, flicking his pens off desks, cutting in front of him in the lunch line. He'd been in a few scuffles, mostly in Gym when it could be passed off as something else, but he wasn't blameless, either. He'd thrown a pre-emptive punch two weeks earlier because he could see the gears turning, and he knew what would come next if he didn't put a stop to it before he lost his advantage. 

Usually, he just ran in the opposite direction, but he wasn't about to tell CG that. 

Rose nudged him with an elbow a while later, forcing him to look up from his phone. He hadn't really had much of a two-way conversation, he'd really just been playing Angry Birds while Karkat droned on about his older brother thinking he was the second coming of Christ because he'd found out people like him had clubs after entering college for the first time.

"We're five minutes away," Rose said, packing her novel away as she spoke. "What do you want for dinner?"

"Why?"

"Because Mom has a project due next week and it's four thirty in the afternoon."

"No, I meant why are you asking? My answer hasn't changed since I was like six."

"Dinosaur nuggets?"

"Fuckin' dino nuggets."

The bus came to a shuddering stop not far from their driveway. With their uncle away for the next month, they were guaranteed at least one bus trip a day. Usually the adults traded off when they were both home, one driving them to school and the other picking them up. With just their mother home, she usually dropped them off and left them to take the bus back.

Lately, Roxy had been more than a little buzzed by lunchtime. They didn't know the full story, only what they'd managed to weasel out of her and their uncle, but they knew things were happening in her job. She'd gone off on a tangent earlier in the week but they couldn't decode all the terminology she was throwing around. As far as they could see, the company wanted her out in Geneva as part of a research team, but they wanted her there for six months. 

She'd been fighting her boss on the matter for weeks and was trying to prove she'd be just as useful as a travelling consultant, completing most of her work from home like she'd always done. She was willing to commit to more frequent trips abroad for the period, but she wouldn't go out uninterrupted for six months. 

Rose unlocked the front door and slipped the keys back into her pocket. Her cell beeped a few times as it picked up the house wifi signal and Dave kicked off his sneakers and followed her as far as the kitchen. 

"See you later?" he asked, taking the apple juice carton from the fridge as he spoke. He held it out but she shook her head and pointed towards the stairs. 

"Homework."

"Yeah, me too."

"Six o'clock?"

"Yeah, I'll make sure Mom comes up as well," he said. 

Rose waved a farewell and took the stairs up, while Dave went down to the basement. He threw his school bag onto the couch and opened the zipper with one hand, the other still clutching his juice. When that proved too difficult a task, he put the bottle down on the carpet and used both hands to free his textbook from the backpack. 

He knocked on the door to Roxy's study before he opened it, giving her a few seconds to make it look as though she was hard at work. She beamed when he walked in and spun around on her seat to watch him drop down onto her well-worn armchair. 

"Hey, baby. How was school?"

"Okay. I won Gym."

"Won what, best dressed?"

He snorted when she wiggled an eyebrow at him, but sunk down across the chair to throw his legs over one arm and rest his head on the other. It was a tighter squeeze than usual, but he was sure he'd grown at least an inch in the last month.

"Jealous?"

"Super jealous. I'd give anything for legs like that."

"The ladies just can't resist 'em."

"Rose already pointed out you look ridiculous, didn't she?"

"She did. I chose to believe she was giving a sincere compliment."

"She wasn't, you look ridiculous."

"There was swoonage."

"No, there wasn't."

"Okay, so I'm exaggerating. There wasn't exactly swoonage."

"I'm getting you a new pair next week."

"You are just so god damn jealous of these babies you can't stand to look at them."

"They're blinding. We could use you as a beacon in a snowstorm."

"Shut up," Dave said, finally drawing the conversation about his legs to an end. "I've got science homework, wanna help me?"

"Is it the science of how a real live person can look so much like a cadaver?" Roxy laughed and winked at him when he scowled, shuffling her chair across the carpet to look at his textbook. "Okay, what are we doing?" 

She wasn't drunk. She'd been drinking, he could see the glass on her desk, but she wasn't drunk. Her speech was clear and he could hardly smell it on her even though she was leaning over his shoulder to read the textbook propped up on against his knee.

"Life," he said dramatically, complete with an over-the-top hand wave. "Y'know, cells and shit."

"They'll give you the talk in a few weeks. Do you want me to get it over and done with first?"

"God, no," he shuddered. Roxy rolled her eyes and reached over to flip back a few pages to catch up, while he opened his exercise book to where he'd left off in class. "Never will still be too soon."

"Your loss. Just the questions here?"

"Yeah. I think I get 'em all, it's not hard."

"That one's C."

"I know, I wrote that down already."

"The next one is C, too."

"I know. I'm up to question six."

"Don't bother with eight, it's wrong."

"How is the question wrong?"

"It's just so wrong I can't even begin to explain why. Just skip it," Roxy said. She patted his cheek and scooted her chair back over to the desk, her iTunes playlist resuming in the middle of _Blah Blah Blah_. "Trust me."

Dave glanced up as she turned back around to face her computer, flicking a few pages back and forth as he tried to read her monitor from a distance. He couldn't make out anything clearly, just a Chrome window with too many tabs to count. He shifted a little to sit up straighter in the armchair, lifting one foot to rest on the arm so he could use his leg as a more effective book rest for his science text.

"Hey," he started a few minutes later. Roxy's playlist had cycled through Kanye West, Miley Cyrus, and more Kesha in the meantime. She waved a hand over her shoulder to encourage him to go on. "Why're you so pissed about work lately?"

"They won't compromise. Not yet, anyway. I'm working on it."

"What do they want?"

"More than I think I can give 'em. They basically want me to move to Switzerland for half a year to head up a project over there."

"So go. Six months skiing and eating toblerones. That's all they do in Switzerland, right?"

"I wish, baby."

"Why can't you go?"

"Because I don't think I can trust you and Rose with the house for six months. You'll flood the basement and blame it on the river and besides, I'm pretty sure it's illegal for me to leave my kids home alone for that long." 

"We're not retarded. And Bro's here most of the time," he added. 

His uncle hadn't been around much lately, but that was understandable. He'd been out over the summer on a headline tour and had been continually adding dates in various cities, because his new album, _Puppetkind_ , had picked up more momentum than anyone had expected. The first single had exploded on the charts when it was released online two weeks before the album launch. People had been waiting almost two years to find out what happened after the events of _The Ventriloquist's Valediction_. It was pretty obvious what was going to happen. Cal took over and performed most of the album himself, complete with Dirk in some kind of hostage situation. He got out alright in the end. 

"You know he's forty in like two months, right?"

"No fucking way, I'm gonna make him a card."

"I'm sure it'll be beautiful," Roxy said, spinning her chair around again. "I can't go to Switzerland for six months. I'm negotiating to get a month on, a month off, since they wouldn't agree to fly me out every other week when they actually need me there. I can deal with alternating months for six months." 

"What do they even want you to do?"

"Science."

"Duh."

"I can't tell you, or I'll have to kill you."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Before they even told me about the project they made me sign like eight different non-disclosure agreements."

"Sweet. So you're hiding JFK and Bigfoot then?"

"Something like that," Roxy smiled. "C'mon, pack your shit up and we'll go upstairs. Rosie's been making dinner every night this week. This one's on me."

"What're we having?"

"Dino nuggets."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I might make some mashed potatoes though, like, ones made from real potatoes."

"Holy shit, we have those?"

"Hell yeah we do."

"Awesome," Dave said. He swung his legs around to sit upright on the armchair, folding his books in on each other as he picked up the apple juice bottle from the floor. He stood up and ducked out of the study, waiting on the bottom step for Roxy to catch up. He only started up the stairs when he heard her chair crash into the desk. 

"Oh my _God_ , Davey, you so need a new pair of gym shorts."

"Shut up, I look hot."

"I'm pretty sure your butt is hanging out." 

"I think I'd know if my own ass was hanging out of my shorts."

"I don't think you've realised it yet," Roxy said incredulously as they emerged into the kitchen. Rose was sitting at the table beside a cup of herbal tea, her English notes spread across the surface in front of her. She put her pencil down when her mother and brother approached, expecting the pair of them to drag her into their conversation. 

She wasn't disappointed. 

"Hey, Rose," Roxy started.

"Yes, I find his shorts disturbing in many, many ways." 

"Okay, good. I'm glad we're in agreement. Petition to buy him new ones that don't traumatise small children?"

"I second the motion," Rose said, smiling as she pulled up her legs. She dug her heels into the edge of the chair and put her chin down on her knees. 

"Motion carried. Sorry, baby."

"Shut the hell up, aren't you late for a meeting with the devil himself?" Dave asked, throwing himself into the seat opposite his sister. 

"Did _you_ tell him about that?" Rose asked, watching her mother collect a bag of potatoes from the cupboard. "I trusted you."

"Look, sweetie, you know I can't keep track of all my own meetings with Satan, let alone yours. We should really invest in a calendar," Roxy said.

"I'll set up a Google calendar and share it with you later."

"Oh good, that'll make it all so much easier." 

Dave's eyes darted from one to the other before he decided it wasn't worth getting involved. He opened his science book again and found the page he was working from, reaching across the table to steal one of his sisters' pens. 

"Oh, question eleven is bullshit, too."

+++

As Fall flowed on into Winter, Dave found himself inundated with more and more attempts to work him up during classes. He was put in one lunchtime detention for starting a fight he'd actually been trying to end, and a second and third for ending what he'd been the one to start in the first place. They'd threatened him with a suspension if it happened again.

He'd managed to hide the resulting black eye for three days. Dave Lalonde, wearing sunglasses indoors no matter the time of day, knocking back a fistful of Tylenol with his daily apple juice in the cafeteria? No one questioned him. There was nothing to question. Naturally, he'd been caught out by his sister one morning when she opened the door to his bedroom to wake him up. 

He didn't understand why the kids he'd known since they were all six years old were suddenly turning on him. Without Rose there to step in, because her year had been moved into the new building across campus, they'd been going out of their way to work him up. He wasn't doing anything differently. He'd always been obnoxious and outlandish and he was an asshole, sure, but he wasn't screwing up the grading curve badly enough for an entire year to suddenly start wanting to see him dead. 

No one warned him about the incoming punch that knocked him off-balance outside his locker. He recovered, catching his balance before he hit the ground. He kicked his fallen books aside and straightened out his shirt, taking the time to compose himself before starting off his retaliation attack with a run up. It didn't matter who it was, or why they'd picked the time between second and third periods to sucker punch him into oblivion, all he knew was this shit had to stop. 

Dave knew that he was disadvantaged from the beginning. His head was spinning from the initial hit and he'd been out of his bedroom long enough that the dull throbbing of a headache was already sitting low in his skull, just above the tip of his spine. He didn't even know who it was he was fighting, landing whatever hits he could in between dodges. Slaps, punches, low kicks, he resorted to whatever would get him out of the path of the next inevitable hit. 

When he went down, he knew it was coming. He'd just landed a solid punch to the other guys' stomach and was trying to dart back out of arm's reach. The rubber of his sneakers caught on the linoleum of the floor and threw him off balance, so when the return punch hit him across the jaw he went flying backwards, his arms automatically falling behind him in an attempt to break his fall. 

He heard the crunch. Everyone else heard the crunch. 

He rolled onto his back to get the weight off his left arm and lay in the middle of the corridor, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.

+++

"And how are you feeling, Mr. Strider?"

"Huh? Me?" 

"Yes, you. Do you know where you are?"

"Heh, yeah. The hospital. Oh, did I eat one of those things, the fuzzy things, you know the things," Dave laughed, raising his right hand to scratch a closed eyelid. "You know, the things," he snorted. 

"We'll, you sound like you're having a good time," the nurse said. "Okay, time to listen to me, Mr. Strider. You need to keep your left arm still a little longer, alright? It's strapped up but not plastered yet."

"Mr. Strider, Mr. Strider, why do you keep calling me that?"

"Very funny, we've already ruled out memory loss," she laughed in response, hanging a chart off the end of his bed. "Your dad's here, he just went to get something to eat. We thought you'd be out a little longer with all the morphine we have you on."

"I don't even have a dad," Dave mumbled. "I've got a mom though, is she coming? Oh, no, she's in America, the other bit of America, not this bit of America. I think. What day is it?"

"Your aunt?"

"No, my mom. My mom is my mom, is she here?"

"I might have to get your doctor back in here, sweetheart, you're not talking much sense. What else can you remember from this morning?"

"Am I gonna die? Poor Paul, she's gonna miss me so much if I die. Hey, you think she'll put me in a jar?"

"It's okay, Dave. Can I call you Dave?"

"Sure, it's better than Balthazar. How gay of a name is Balthazar?"

"Ah, shit, he woke up?"

"He did indeed! Now, Mr. Strider, I'm going to send the doctor back in because, right now, your son isn't making much sense and even though we already said he didn't have concussion I'd rather be safe than sorry," the nurse said. 

"Nephew," Dirk said quickly, eyes darting over to Dave on the bed. "Not son. Shitfuck, I told the girl at reception when we got here. He's supposed to be down as Lalonde, fuck. Did you tell him?"

"Tell him what?"

"Yeah, tell me what?" Dave laughed again, throwing his free arm over his face. "She called me Mr. Strider, as if that shit's my name. That's not my name, it's yours." 

"Shut up, Dave."

"You can't tell me what to do," he said. "Oh wait, the hospital thinks you're my dad so you probably can tell me what to do," he scoffed. 

"You're off your face on pain meds, just enjoy it while it lasts," Dirk said, ushering the nurse out into the hallway to talk to her with Dave out of earshot. "Okay, shit. So we fucked up here, it's okay. We can fix this. What are the chances of him remembering that conversation in a few hours?"

"I don't know? It's different for everyone," the nurse explained. "I was only following the chart."

"I know, but that means your receptionist didn't absorb a goddamn word I said. Can you change the paperwork?"

"Change it how?"

"His name. He thinks he's a Lalonde, not a Strider, and he thinks my sister is his mom and that I'm his uncle and he's got no fucking idea that we've been lying to him for the last decade," Dirk explained. He was trying not to lose his cool, but this wasn't something he thought he'd have to deal with for another four years. They'd always planned on telling Dave the truth - he'd probably want a passport someday - but waiting until he was eighteen had seemed like the safest bet. That way, if he hated them both and said they'd fucked him over, he'd be going away to college anyway. "Shit got weird in the 90s, okay?"

"I'll do what I can, Mr. Strider."

"Thanks. Yeah, thanks. Look, my sister's gone to pick up her kid from school, can you give her a heads up if you see her before I do? Don't tell the girl, though, that'll be a disaster," Dirk said. "Okay, shit, wish me luck with this," he added, running a hand through his hair. "You know what, I'll text her. I'll do that now. Yeah." He took out his cell and hurriedly typed out a message to Roxy.

_TT: Abort mission, we done fucked up. The hospital admitted him as Strider and told him and he's asking questions. He's high as a fucking kite though, so I've got everything crossed in the hopes that he forgets. I might get them to accidentally slip him a double dose of morphine._

Dirk pocketed his cell phone after sending the message, because he knew that Roxy was driving and he was happier not knowing exactly when she'd choose to look at her phone. He could see, at the far end of the hallway, Dave's nurse leaning over the admin desk and talking to someone sitting down out of sight. He let out a sigh and turned to go back into the room. 

"Hey, Bro, I've been thinking, right?" Dave started mumbling as soon as Dirk switched off half the lights. He finally cracked an eye open, turning his head to follow the sounds of his uncle moving through the dim light. 

"Always dangerous."

"You're fucking hilarious," he said, chuckling despite the attempted sarcasm. "No, but seriously, like, I know I'm super wasted on these painkillers but that hot nurse said you're my dad, but you can't be my dad because you're my uncle, and mom is my mom. I don't have a dad, me and Rose never had one, not really."

"Dude, you're talking shit. Just relax, broski. How's your head?"

"Lookin' fine," Dave smirked.

Dirk saw it happen. He saw the exact moment that Dave realised what he was saying, what he'd heard. He watched as the gears started turning and waited for the words to catch up to the morphine-addled thought process. 

"Am I an incest baby?"

"What."

"That's why we live in the middle of the woods, isn't it? Because you and mom are trying to hide some kind of disgusting incestuous deal from the outside world. Ew, that's disgusting, ohh, I gotta tell Rose we're incest babies, she's gonna lose her shit," Dave said urgently, trying to reach find his pockets to withdraw the cell phone that was still in his backpack. 

"Hey, look at me," Dirk said, his chair scraping across the floor as he dragged it closer to the bed. 

"Eurgh, don't touch me!"

"Dave? Dave, you're the one losing his shit right now. Calm down."

"You motherfucker! Oh, god, you and mom, ew, no!" 

"Dave, calm your tits," Dirk said, reaching over to run a hand through Dave's hair. "I'll tell you the truth if you calm down, okay? How's that for a plate of fair trade cookies?"

"I don't get it, are you being ironic?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing. Look at me, kid."

Dirk continued brushing his fingers over Dave's scalp, running them back and forth until the boy nodded, his expression going slack. He looked as if he was about to speak but he couldn't find any words, let alone the right ones, through the medication haze. 

"You lied," he said eventually, his eyebrows knotting together. "How fucked up are we?"

"Not that fucked up," Dirk said. He pushed the bangs back out of Dave's eyes and removed his hand, folding his arms to rest them on the edge of the mattress. "Your mom's your aunt. Rose is hers."

"Then who's my mom?"

"I couldn't tell you." 

"Why not?"

"I think she's dead. I didn't keep in contact with her."

"I don't understand," Dave said quietly. 

"It's a shitload to understand, kid. Especially in the state you're in."

"You're not my uncle."

"Ten points to Gryffindor," Dirk replied. He leant forward to rest his chin on his arms.

"You're my dad."

"Another ten points."

"That is _so fucked up_."

"Sorry, little man."

"Why?"

"The lying, mostly."

"No, you didn't let me finish," Dave said slowly. "Why am I so tired?"

"You broke your wrist pretty badly, dude. They've got you on a morphine drip to keep you barely conscious because they're still deciding how many pins need to go in," Dirk explained with a laugh. "You wanna go back to sleep?"

"I think so, yeah."

"I'll go hang out in the cafeteria and see how many pudding cups I can steal on the way."

"Get me the chocolate ones," Dave mumbled, turning his head back to stare up at the darkened ceiling. "Hey," he added hesitantly, as he finally let his eyelids slip shut.

"What's up?"

"Do I have to call you dad?"

"Just go to sleep, kid. You won't even remember this conversation in the morning," Dirk said. He pushed his chair back as he stood up then leant over to press a kiss to Dave's head. "And if you do, we'll talk this shit out properly. You feel me?"

"Mmhmm."

"Dave?"

"Mmm?

"Ah, fuck it, I need to make some calls. I'll be back soon."

Dirk pulled the room door closed behind him. He didn't need to make some calls, he needed half a bottle of whiskey and a carton of smokes and he knew that the hospital wouldn't supply him with either. Roxy would. She was already on her way and he was sure that she knew the location of every liquor store in the state so the detour wouldn't take her too far out of her way. He sent her a second text. 

The first time he'd ever seen Dave, he'd been in a hospital bed. There was something inherently unsettling about dredging up all that history in the same kind of building, even if they were two thousand miles from Houston. At three years old, he'd been a tiny thing, malnourished and stunted by years of neglect. Now, he was fourteen and gangly, stuck in the awkward phase between growing limbs and learning how to move them with any kind of grace. 

It didn't sit right, thinking about the last decade like he was, because he'd always thought that when Dave grew up and found out the truth, he'd regret everything. He was sure that he'd regret asking Roxy to take over the role and title of parent, that he'd hate having given up those moments to her instead of keeping them for himself when he'd known all along that Dave would be the only chance he ever had at parenthood. 

He didn't feel regret.

He was tired, he was anxious, he was desperate for more information about how the incident had even happened, but he'd told Dave the straight up truth and he didn't regret a single action he'd taken to ensure the kid grew up surrounded by something like a family. 

He'd done the one thing he was pretty sure parents were supposed to do and had made all of his decisions based on what was best for his kid.

+++

"Are you alright, mate?"

"Hmm?"

"Alright, you blathering idiot, are you alright?"

"Huh? Yeah, fine. Shit, yeah, fine. What time is it?"

"Twelve for me, so three for you," Jake said through the phone. It took Dirk a moment to process how long he'd been sitting alone in the cafeteria and the implications behind the time difference between him and Jake.

"You're in California."

"I am."

"Ah, fuck, it's a Wednesday."

"Never mind, I've always got time for a pal in strife."

"Are we twelve or something?"

"No, but you did just have a ripsnorter of a conversation with your offspring."

"I've got no fucking idea what that is," Dirk said. He looked up when he heard someone call out to him from across the room and had to ask Jake to repeat his last comment, because Roxy was brandishing her arms as she hurried between dining tables to reach him. 

"Your offspring. Dave. That must've been one humdinger of a conversation."

"I know you think that clears it up, but it doesn't and I've gotta go. I'll call you later tonight when shit calms down over here."

"I can't even fathom what you're dealing with right now, old chap. Go and do what you need to do." 

"Thanks, Jake."

"Are you going?" Jake asked, after a moment of silence.

"Yeah, I'm getting there."

"Do you need me to remind you that I love you and my only goal in life right now is to ensure you stay as happy as a clam and that you in no way interrupted my work day?"

“Nah, but it's nice to hear."

"Then I love you and you in no way interrupted my paperwork. Now go!"

Dirk went. He disconnected the call and flipped his cell phone face down onto the table just as Roxy dropped down into the seat opposite him. 

"I had to drive Rose home first. The liquor store on the corner closed down or something so I had to run around to the one on the main road instead and then I got stuck coming back through traffic, but the upside to all that is they had a sale on so I picked up two of everything while I was there so we are _well_ stocked for the next week," Roxy said. 

She was rambling and they both knew it. She'd read his texts and knew what had happened, but he was well aware she wanted to put off the conversation for as long as possible.

"Everything?"

"Vodka, whiskey, gin, a box of wine - as in, a box of bottles not a cask - and I impulse bought some of those pre-mix things for kids in bottles because the label was cute."

"They're not really for kids, you know," Dirk pointed out. Roxy dismissed him as she dropped a box onto the table.

"When I was there I couldn't remember what you were smoking before you quit two months ago, so I picked up a carton of the ones we used to steal as kids."

Dirk grimaced. They'd been a pretty good team back in the 80s. While Roxy put on her charm and begged the attendant to help her pump gas, or put air in her tires, or any number of inane tasks she'd been able to do since she developed fine motor skills, he would jump the counter and steal them three packs of cigarettes each before walking out of the gas station alone so she could pick him up around the corner a few minutes later. They'd managed to get a full two years of free cigarettes that way, before Roxy had left for college and turning eighteen had taken away most of the thrill.

Of course, surveillance cameras hadn't really been a thing when they were teenagers. 

"He knows, Rox. I don't know how much he's gonna retain between now and tomorrow, but he knows." 

"What did you tell him?"

"Everything. Not everything-everything, but the fucked up family tree everything."

"He's a good kid, Dirk. Well, he's a fucking weird kid and he never sneaks out in the middle of the night because he's got no friends to fuck off with, but he's still a good kid," Roxy said. She tipped her chair forward onto its front two legs and leant across the table to move in closer to her brother. "Don't get me wrong, Rosie is a sweetheart but she'd wipe the floor with Dave in a weirdo contest any day and that's saying something."

"Because of the vocabulary and the penchant for lipstick six shades too dark for her?"

"Pretty much that. I don't know where she gets it from."

"Have you met yourself?"

"Hey, low blow, little bro," Roxy said, jabbing Dirk's upper arm with her left pointer finger. "The point is that he's pretty resilient and he's been coping well with the shit that's obviously been going down at school lately. He'll bounce back."

+++

Dave didn't speak to anyone for four days after he was discharged from the hospital.

No one had seen him on the first day. He'd gone straight from the garage to his bedroom and had only emerged to use the bathroom while everyone else was downstairs. His Pesterchum account was set to idle and even though anyone walking past his door could hear the clicking of laptop keys, he refused to appear online. After both Roxy and Dirk had tried to contact him, mostly to ask if he needed anything or wanted some lunch, he'd blocked both of their handles. 

It took Rose another day and a half to convince him to talk to her. He hadn't stopped her from sending him messages, even if he had decided not to reply. He wasn't interested in a conversation, though - he'd asked her to bring him up a new box of Tylenol. She did, and he opened his door to retrieve them when she knocked a few minutes later. 

He hadn't looked well, she'd relayed to her mother. He looked exhausted, like he'd been both sleeping too much and not enough. They knew he'd been eating because Dirk had been working in the basement the night before and had heard footsteps in the kitchen above. He'd chosen not to confront him at three in the morning, leaving him to come around in his own time. 

Rose had tried again the next morning. 

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 6:43 --

TT: Dave? I'm fairly certain you're awake because I heard you talking to Paul a little earlier.  
TG: go ahead  
TT: I have to leave in a few minutes, is there anything you'd like me to bring home for you?  
TG: leave  
TT: It's Monday. I'm going to school.  
TG: then no  
TG: ill email  
TT: Are you certain?  
TG: 100%  
TT: Alright. Do consider coming downstairs for dinner tonight, though. They're both starting to worry.  
TG: they know where i am  
TT: It's not quite the same as knowing you're okay.   
TG: ill consider  
TG: ask for pizza

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 6:46 --

+++

The conversation didn't stop when Dave sat down at the table later that night. Rose had indeed requested pizza and he could smell it all the way from his bedroom. Given the choice between facing his so-called family and going another night without a solid meal and relying on leftovers and cereal, he could forgive them enough to be in the same room as them for a few minutes. 

"No, but hear me out, Rox. Just invite him over. We won't do anything weird." 

"No!" Roxy snapped. "Can we please stop discussing my partner like this? I'm not bringing him here to meet any of you."

"So now he's a cowboy?"

"Oh my _God_ , you're insufferable," she groaned, rolling her eyes at her brother. "I'm not telling you who he is because it's none of your business."

"It kind of is," Rose pointed out. "Does he even know you've got children?"

"Of course he does. He also knows those children are the reason I don't bring him into our home."

"Wait, what?"

"I don't want to go bringing strangers into our house, Rosie. Not ones that are strange to you, anyway."

"Is that why you never bring anyone home, either?" 

"Who, me?"

"Who else would I be talking to?" 

Dirk was a little behind on the conversation because he was well aware of Dave filling the chair next to him, refusing to say anything but still present, picking this and that off his pizza slice before he deemed it worthy of eating. He reached over his plate and picked up his glass of soda, knocking back half of it to buy himself some more time to think up a good response. 

Roxy's embargo on visitors of _that_ kind was only one of the reasons he'd never had Jake over when he was in the area. There was also the fact he'd been keeping as much of his personal life as he could out of New York, because there were things that not even Roxy needed to know about. He kept as much as he could in Houston and on the road and it hadn't ever occurred to him to bring any of that shit into his sisters' house. Somewhere along the line, Jake had fallen into the category of out-of-state business because it was easier to deal with the perpetual separation that way.

"Nah," he said, swapping out the glass for another slice. "There's never been anyone able to match up to your budding genius. I'm saving myself all for you."

"Hmm. Touching, but you might as well give it up," Rose said. "I'm not exactly interested in your kind." 

"What, uncles? Yeah, I've always had a hunch," Dirk said, balancing his dejected tone with a grin. 

"No, just in general. I'm not particularly concerned with how close the men are on my family tree," Rose explained.

"Fair call. I feel pretty much the same way about you ladies but hell, thought I should always keep the option open for you so I didn't break your little heart. I mean, who wouldn't want a piece of this?"

"My heart remains as unbroken as Mom's devotion to the dashing Polish entrepreneur she no doubt sees on every business trip to Europe."

"I'm not denying or confirming your accusations," Roxy winked. "Not right now, anyway."

They all stopped talking when Dave pushed his chair out from the table and stood up. He walked over to the counter and threw his plate, pizza and all, into the sink before turning to storm out of the kitchen. He seemed to change his mind halfway and trudged back across the room to collect a bottle of apple juice from the fridge. He almost made it to the stairs a second time but paused again.

"What the fuck is even happening?"

"We're eating pizza, man," Dirk pointed out. "Why'd you throw yours into the sink?"

"Because you're all batshit! That's not even close to being the right word for what you all are. How the _fuck_ is this a regular family dinner? Two people just came out, you're making hella disturbing incest jokes and I don't even fucking want to _know_ what you were talking about before I got here! What the actual _fuck_?"

"Look, baby, just calm down, would you?" Roxy said, standing up from the table to slowly approach Dave. "Besides, it's not as if they told us anything we didn't already know."

"I don't give a shit about that! This is too weird. I'm not prepared to deal with weird family shit while I'm trying to stuff my face with pizza. How the fuck was that decision even made? Oh, fuck, I got some bitch knocked up but screw that, I'll tell the kid his aunt is his mother instead!"

"That's not how it happened!"

"Then what did happen?" Dave challenged. He narrowed his eyebrows but Dirk only rolled his eyes in response, turning a little in his chair. 

"I'll tell you when you're not hopped up on pain meds and freaking out over what's honestly a pretty tame conversation for this house." 

"Fine. But fuck you all for not telling me, fuck you," Dave spat, turning on his heel again and finally disappearing upstairs like he'd intended to before his outburst. 

"So," Rose said slowly, breaking the silence a few moments after they heard a door slam upstairs. "How do you avoid being photographed in public with your partners?" 

"Try the singular," Dirk scoffed. "But simple. You only get yourself a B-grade career. Until you fuck that up and get popular, anyway. Then you just get careful."

"Of course, how stupid of me to assume you've always been famous enough to have paparazzi follow your every move." 

They fell silent again after that. 

"Okay," Roxy sighed, a few minutes later. "Who wants gin?"

"I'm fifteen," Rose pointed out. 

"So, everyone then? Perfect."

**End of Act 2.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything works out by the end. I promise. Shit does not get twisted and weird, shit stays domestic as hell. Chill.


	17. [A3A1]: mother please stop interacting with my friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is familial bonding all around.

**December, 2011.**

"You're never going to guess where the delightful woman who is, by the way, my now _only_ superior is sending me over New Years weekend!"

"They found Atlantis, didn't they? Nepal? For fucks' sake, don't tell me that you convinced them to send you and a team of idiots on yet another doomed research trip to the Bermuda Triangle."

"I wish, mate! Much closer to home though."

"LA?"

"Well, further than that."

"Ouagadougou?"

"Not quite that far."

"Where then?"

"Houston."

Dirk threw the marionette head he'd been painting clear across the room and spun his chair around to face away from the desk. He was lucky the phone was on speaker or it would have ended up embedded in the drywall.

"What was that crash?"

"Puppet face hitting the wall."

"For any reason or?"

"Don't take it."

"Pardon?"

"Don't take the gig. Stay in California."

"You heard me say Houston, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I heard."

"Then why the bloody hell would I not take it?"

"Dave's here."

"Here? You're already there?"

"Yeah, I extended my run but I had to go back with the dates not forwards for some reason."

"Alright, well, I'm sure that's been swell but why is Dave with you, in Houston, right now, when you've never once considered letting him anywhere _near_ Texas, and especially since he only started speaking to you a fortnight ago?"

Dirk sighed. He'd spent a grand total of fifteen hours with Jake since October. His luck had fallen into a fuck backwards alignment with the screw you galaxy and every time they'd tried to schedule free weekends, something had come up. He'd only managed to get down to New York City the night of Jake's research presentation mid-November because it was within driving distance and Dave had finally started speaking to Roxy by then. 

Roxy had been the one suggest that he take Dave with him. He hadn't wanted to, they'd only been on speaking terms for a little over three days when she'd booked their flights. There was no way of knowing how much shit would resurface once Dave was in Texas. If he got angry again over learning the truth about his parents, Dirk could deal with that. He could deal with yelling, or slamming doors, or any of the shit he'd been putting up with for weeks.

But if there was something, anything, that caused long-buried childhood memories to resurface, he didn't think he was prepared to cope with that. He had no idea what was suppressed in those memories. He didn't want to know, and he didn't want Dave to ever remember them. He'd worked hard to help him forget in the first place. If he'd been any older than three when Dirk had taken over, the memories probably would have stuck. But he was young enough at the time that the attention, love, and safety he got in New York now formed his earliest memories. 

That was why he'd never brought Dave to Texas. The last thing Dirk wanted was for all that shit to come rushing back.

Dave's arm was still a little stiff despite the removal of his cast a week earlier, especially in the below freezing temperatures of New York state. It would be good for him, Roxy had argued, to spend a few weeks in a city where the average winter temperatures were still higher than an upstate summer. It would be good for both of them to spend some time together without her and Rose. They could let it all out on the city rooftops, yell at each other until their throats were raw if it turned ugly. 

Dirk hadn't felt comfortable with the idea at the time. Now, knowing he was giving up solid four days with Jake for the kid who still refused to look him in the eye, he was unsettled by the vague sensation of resentment in the pit of his stomach.

"Roxy's idea," he mumbled. 

"It's your flat. You could have said no."

"Don't think I could've this time. He turned fifteen three weeks ago and it's like something clicked and he's on a mission to prove he's his own person all of a sudden."

"What's he up to?"

"Now? I don't know. He asked for fifty bucks and me not to call him for three hours."

"And you gave it to him?"

"Yeah. We've been here almost a week already, he's figured out his way around."

"Was that really the best idea you've ever had, mate?"

"Probably not. He said thanks when I handed over the fifty though and the hell if that isn't an improvement. I'll take it," Dirk said, trying to hide the irritation in his voice. 

Jake didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to his parenting decisions. Working with kids didn't mean you knew how to raise them and while Dirk usually welcomed his input and had in the past, right now, when things were still so tense, it wasn't helping. 

Jake took the hint. 

"Alright, just thought I'd mention it. We're back to square one then?"

"Yeah. I'm finished here on Thursday and we're going back after that. Maybe I can put him on the flight home outta Chicago and redirect mine to San Diego," Dirk mused aloud. He brushed aside the parts on his desk and opened up a new browser tab as he spoke.

"That's the fifth?"

"Yeah, looks like it."

"I fly out on the sixth. I don't know where yet, though," Jake said, ensuring that he did say the afterthought aloud in some kind of desperate attempt to create even a sliver of hope. 

"God fucking dammit all to hell," Dirk snapped. He shoved the wireless keyboard hard enough that it flipped up to rest on its back edge against his monitor. 

"Oh, calm down, it's not as wretched a situation as you're making it out to be. It happens every year around this time."

"You think I don't know that?"

"I'm very sure you do. What are you doing now?" Jake asked. He could hear things being thrown aside and then a door slam followed by another a few moments later. "Hey, don't even think about it, mate. Hey, you! Strider! Holy fucking mackerel, Dirk, listen to me you complete and utter nincompoop!"

"What am I listening for, another round of let's figure out which word Jake English just made up?"

"I don't make them up, I've told you that," Jake said, trying to figure out exactly how to scowl down the phone line. "Too late?" 

"Too late," Dirk agreed. He leant back against the waist-high cement wall of the building roof and dropped the offending lighter down beside him. 

"Well you royally fucked that up."

"Did I?"

"This is a permanent thing again this week, isn't it?"

"Maybe."

"You're an appalling liar."

"I'll quit again next week."

"Do you know how many times you've said that in the last year alone?"

"Eight?"

"About that," Jake rolled his eyes. He'd stopped keeping track at least five years earlier and knew better than to expect any of Dirk's attempts to quit smoking altogether to stick for more than four months."You know they're still offering me that new position over here, don't you?"

"And I'm still offering to break your fucking nose if you take it for the wrong reasons," Dirk said coolly between drags. 

"What, like because it will get me all of the ladies? All of them, Dirk. All the ladies."

"I was thinking the reason that it cuts half the travel arrangements out of our equation." 

"Well, it would do that too and I suppose that would be just dandy, but think about those ladies."

"Wouldn't they be redundant if you took the job for the second reason?"

"Stop being so perceptive."

"Don't take the job."

"What if I want to take it for myself and myself alone?"

"Then you would have taken it six months ago when they first offered it to you."

"It's a good job, Dirk," Jake sighed. 

"It's a fucking glorified admin job and that's quoting you from way back in June when it first came up as a possibility. Three weeks in and you'll regret it. If they really wanted you to take it they would have given you an ultimatum by now," Dirk went on. 

He crushed the cigarette butt against the low wall then dropped it at his feet. He lit a second, because Jake had paused before replying and that could only mean there was more to the story he was about to discover. 

"They told me yesterday I've got until the third to decide or they open the position to outside applicants."

"Jake, we both know you're not going to take a shitty desk job over your current one. For fucks' sake, you went through all that government bullshit to immigrate so you could take it in the first place. We'll deal with this round of universal bullshit the same way we've dealt with every other round of cosmic fuck yous."

"You mean by getting so worked up about it you don't realise I've turned the tables on you?"

"I," Dirk paused. He heard Jake chuckle on the other end of the line. 

"Well, spit it out then, mate."

"If Dave was here for any other reason right now, I'd just say fuck it and tell you to haul ass to Texas on the next flight out."

"Romantic as always."

"You know me. All romance, all the time."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Yeah, I'm just talking shit now."

"No, really?"

"I can't just spring this shit on him. You know that, right? By the way, kiddo, I'm actually a real, functioning adult a lot of the time and I've got the long-term relationship to prove it."

"Yeah, I get it. He's just starting to come around and you don't want to muck it up by throwing all of this on him at once."

"Something like that," Dirk sighed again. "Alright, look. I've got a set booked the weekend of the 14th. Can you get out to New York City then?"

"I'm not booked in to be anywhere then and cut offs for those dates are in two days. I should be able to make it."

"No, no should be. I'm booking your fucking tickets as soon as I go back inside."

"Dirk, no. You're going to book the nice seats, aren't you? Don't book the nice seats, Dirk. I'm more than content to sit in economy for six hours."

"Travelling economy doesn't count as an adventure. It counts as voluntary hell."

"I don't see the point."

"I know you don't. I'll get you in Friday night and back out in time to make it to work on Monday morning."

"Thanks. But seriously, would you just get the economy seats?"

"Why are we even together if you're not just hanging around to take advantage of my fame and fortune?"

"Because you haven't got all that much fame and fortune to rightfully claim."

That was the understatement of the year. _Puppetkind_ was still charting, six months after its release.

"Harsh, man. I was on Letterman that one time."

"Everyone's been on Letterman. Look, I'd better go and finish up what I'm doing here so I can go home," Jake said. "Oh, no one, just some idiot I know."

"Hey, don't talk about me behind my back while I'm still here," Dirk said when he realised that Jake was cutting their conversation short because someone else had walked into the office.

"I'd never. See you later, mate."

"See ya."

Dirk ran a thumb over the iPhone screen to end his call, throwing the second butt down on the rooftop to crush with his heel on the way back to the stairwell. He closed the door to the roof behind him and slipped back into the apartment while he was checking his emails. 

"Why, I've been ever so worried about your whereabouts, young lady!" 

Dirk raised an eyebrow at the ridiculous high-pitched voice Dave was using. He'd even thrown in an attempt at a stereotypical Southern drawl that was all wrong in the vowels and his only success was in forcing Dirk to crack a grin. 

"That was terrible. Don't do it again."

"Can't promise anything," Dave said, shoving a handful of fries into his mouth. 

"Where are mine?"

"Ran out of money."

"I gave you fifty bucks."

"Blew it at the arcade. I didn't know those things still existed."

"You remember when I pointed out the PS3 and the 360, right?"

"I remember."

"And you didn't think either of those would be a better time than outdated as shit machines?"

"What can I say? I got Mom's taste in games."

"She taught you well. Can I sit?"

"It's your apartment," Dave shrugged. Dirk sat on the far end of the futon and stared him down. "I'm not sharing. Get your own fries."

"I gave you the fifty, they're technically as mine as they're gonna get."

"Fuck off."

"Whatever, little man."

"Are you working tonight?"

"Yeah," Dirk said. "Why, you want the house to yourself for any particular reason?"

"So I can murder every single one of these weird ass puppets. Seriously, what the hell is up with their noses?"

"Those aren't noses."

"Oh, ew! Augh, gross! Why would you do that?" 

"It was college," Dirk shrugged. "Made 'em for parties and shit. Got a real answer though?"

"Can I come?"

"What, with me?"

"Yeah."

"I don't think you're allowed, kid. You're only just fifteen and I'm working an eighteen plus venue," Dirk said. 

"So?"

"So I'm not exactly sure what the law says about shit like that."

"It's cool. I googled it," Dave said. He tipped the paper bag up and shook the last few fries out into his mouth. Dirk watched as he scrunched it up and tossed it onto the coffee table. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Seriously, Bro, what's up your ass?" Dave asked the question while he reached over to pick up his laptop. "You throw all this parental fuck up shit on me, ignore my fucking _birthday_ for the first time ever, then drag me to goddamn Texas without even thinking that it might be the last place I ever wanted to go."

"What, you'd like Kansas better?"

"Fuck no."

"Then this isn't the last place you'd ever want to go, is it?"

"Stop talking to Rose behind my back."

"Where do you think she gets it?"

Dave finally turned his head to stare back at Dirk. His glasses, glued to his face since the last morning he'd woken up in New York, hid the flicker of hesitation in his movements. 

He stared beyond the point of discomfort. From behind his well-worn Aviators, he sought out every detail of Dirk's face in an attempt to understand how he'd never noticed more of their similarities before. He'd always been told he looked like his sister. They'd both been forced to listen to countless teachers go on about it every year. He remembered old ladies fawning over the two of them in grocery store checkout queues while Roxy just laughed and pointed out that no, they were a year apart.

Dirk grinned.

Dave blinked. 

It was the same grin he'd seen so many times before and not only on his uncle. It wasn't even a grin, not really. It was more a smirk, the kind where only one side of his lips twisted up. It was the same face he pulled in so many of his selfies but on him, half the expression was hidden. As the years had gone on, Dirk stopped wearing his glasses at home when they had become a signature part of his on-stage persona and he was more likely to go unnoticed in public without shades. The look was all in the eyes. He'd never really thought about it like that before. It had always just been that one grin that came out well in photos. 

Dave reached up with one hand and pushed his glasses up onto his head. The nose pieces snagged in his hair along the way, causing some of the strands to flip up awkwardly. He blinked a few times but forced himself to keep his eyes open despite the fact he could already feel them starting to water in the bright afternoon light.

"I'm not gonna stop calling you Bro."

"I never asked you to, man. You do what feels right."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"You don't care?"

"I care. But in the end, it's just semantics, ain't it? Start calling me an insufferable prick if that's what feels right."

"Nah, that's more my thing," Dave shrugged. He tapped a finger against his keyboard a few times then sighed, reaching up to close the laptop again even though it had finally finished installing updates. 

Dirk scoffed at his comment. 

"Wouldn't want to encroach on your identity, broski."

"Damn straight you wouldn't. Why do you smell like cigarettes but the apartment doesn't? And if you say fucking witchcraft I'm going to set you on fire and blame it on a faulty Floo Network."

"Number one, how fucking sweet is it to get away from that wizard shit for two weeks? And two, the main perk to having the top apartment is the easy roof access. Go pick out a shitty katana and meet me back here in two minutes."

+++

"And what are you laughing at now?"

"Nothing, Mother. Someone linked me to a humorous cat video."

"Oh! Link me to it!"

"Fine," Rose rolled her eyes and opened a new tab. She clicked her YouTube bookmark and searched for cat videos, scrolling halfway down the page until she found one that would pass as humorous to Roxy. She switched over to Pesterchum and sent the link. "Have you spoken to either of the boys today?"

"Nah, not after the total bullshit I had to go through with Dave the other day," Roxy said, waving the hand holding her iPhone while she waited for the video to buffer. 

"The so-called conversation about our ability to keep his lizard alive for two weeks?"

"That'd be the one, hun. Pfft," she gave a snort of laughter distracting enough that Rose bothered to look up from her own laptop. "Just the video. It's fucking hilarious."

"I told you," Rose gave a devious grin and turned her attention back to Pesterchum. 

"What're you sending me now?"

"What? Nothing," Rose said. Her voice remained steady but her eyes went wide when she realised what she'd done.

"Yeah, you did. Oh my God, what is this?"

"Mom!"

"Rosie!"

"Just stop reading it then!"

"Holy shit!"

"Mom!"

"It's not that bad, you know. Did you write this?"

"Mom!"

"Didja?"

"Mother!"

"Hey, I'm not gonna go look for the rest of it. Unless you want me to, because you know I'm totally all about supporting you kids in whatever you choose to do, Harry Potter fanfiction included," Roxy said. As a gesture of goodwill, she closed the chat window and showed Rose the empty screen before she plugged the phone back in on the counter to charge. 

"Mom, just stop," Rose groaned. "Please. It was an accident."

"Do I look like I care? Just do your thing. Unless your thing is shitty out of character Sirius and Remus slash because trust me, I've seen enough of that to last a fucking lifetime," Roxy said, sitting down across the table from her daughter with a glass of wine. 

Rose made another noise of frustration and dropped her head down onto the hard surface beside her computer. Roxy reached over to pat her hair. 

"Don't."

"I'm just telling it like it is, Rosie. If you're gonna do it, do it properly."

"Thanks for the advice."

"Anytime."

"It's not Harry Potter," Rose mumbled, lifting her head back up. She propped it up on a hand as part of an attempt to force herself to maintain eye contact throughout the conversation. 

"Huh?"

"It's not Harry Potter. It's not even fanfiction."

"This time?"

"This time," she agreed with a sigh. "I've been working on it for a few months. I meant to send that paragraph to Kanaya for editing."

"Are you writing a book?" Roxy asked incredulously. "Oh, hun, that's amazing!"

"It's hardly a book. Perhaps a novella, at a stretch." 

"A novella is a book. Hell, anything can be a book these days. Some of the shit my boss sends me to read, Christ. You'd think someone actually tried that old room full of monkeys bullshit."

"I think scientific journals are in a different league to magical youth novellas."

"Science, magic, it's all the same." 

"I'm fairly certain they're at opposite ends of the spectrum."

" _Whatever_ ," Roxy said. "So, who's Kanaya?"

"Who do you think?"

"A dashing European gentleman?"

"Very funny," Rose said, trying to hide the twitch of her lips. She sat up properly in her chair once more and returned her attention to the screen in front of her. "Two out of three."

"Oh, right, duh. You hate Europeans."

"Even more amusing."

"So what does she look like? Is she super cute?"

"I'd say she falls somewhere between a kitten sneezing and Hello Kitty merchandise."

"That's hella cute."

"Indeed."

"Can I see?"

"No!"

"Rosie, hun, c'mon. You literally _just_ told me she's like the cutest thing on the planet, you can't hold off on the photos now," Roxy said. 

Rose sighed. There were reasons she'd never mentioned Kanaya before and her mother being fully supportive was entirely all of them.

How could one argue with a supportive mother?

She brought up a picture on her cell and slid it across the table. Roxy picked it up and examined the photo closely from all angles before she giggled and passed the phone back. 

" _What_?"

"You're telling me you haven't noticed that she's probably the _one person on Earth_ who's whiter than your brother?"

"Bro's pretty white but that's more of an attitude thing, I suppose," Rose said. "But yes, she is rather pale. Her country only gets six hours of summer a year."

"What, she's Canadian?"

"What do you have against Canada, anyway? You know it's less than two hours from here."

"I am _very_ aware of that," Roxy said. When Rose didn't continue, she cocked an eyebrow to encourage her to go on with her story.

"She's English," Rose explained with a sigh, in order to steer the conversation back to its original point. "She's my age, attends a boarding school and has since she was eight, and has an older sister who would put any of Bro's exploits to shame."

"You know one time in high school he single handedly stopped a semi-finals hockey match from happening, right?"

"How?"

"He got up on the scoreboard and refused to move until they let him back on the team."

"Fair. But why was he kicked out?"

"Oh, I don't remember. That might've been the time he wore a set of brass knuckles under his gloves for shits and giggles. Maybe it was the time he managed to dull the entire opposing teams' skates," Roxy said, laughing at the memory. She'd helped him with that one. "They eventually let him back on after he got out on the ice and dodged every attempt anyone made to tackle him. Well, that and they'd been cutting it close on the wins since they booted him."

"Porrim set herself on fire to get out of a history exam."

"That's brave. It's the kind of prank that's too easy to backfire."

Rose waited patiently for Roxy's snorts of laughter to die down. She had no idea if her mother had planned that line or had only realised the pun after she'd said it, but she let herself grin anyway, even if it was at Roxy's expense. 

"We could fly her out here if you wanted. There's still time to get her on a plane for New Years'."

"Oh my God, Mother. Just back off!" 

Roxy was startled into silence as Rose suddenly snatched up her things from the table and stormed off towards the stairs. She waited for the inevitable door slam before she moved to refill her glass and pick up her phone. 

\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 2:13 --

TG: davey bby i need u 2 do me a favor  
TG: cant talk mom kicking ass  
TG: nah ur loosing  
TG: *losing  
TG: no way i am awesome and kicking ass and theres nothing bro can do to stop me  
TG: he beat u down in half a round didnt he??  
TG: more like sixty seconds  
TG: now were watching tintin  
TG: cg looks pretty good but its kind of shitty  
TG: three stars out of ten  
TG: but its only been like ten minutes so who knows  
TG: it could get awesome  
TG: i wouldnt put money on it  
TG: but you never know with this shit  
TG: *wonk* ne way i need a favor  
TG: shoot  
TG: i need kayanas im  
TG: no fucking way  
TG: i am not getting involved in whatever bullshit youre pulling now  
TG: rosell kill me  
TG: like actually kill me  
TG: ill be dead  
TG: no she wonr  
TG: *wont  
TG: just give momma the name   
TG: you didnt hear it from me and i want diplomatic immunity for the next six months  
TG: 3 months  
TG: four  
TG: deal  
TG: …  
TG: i'm waiting inpatient like over here!!!  
TG: grimauxiliatrix

+++

Dave hadn't been paying much attention when he got the safety lecture. 

Don't go wandering off. Don't even go for a piss on your own. Don't fucking drink anything that you didn't get from me personally and while we're at it, don't put anything in your mouth full stop. Don't lose the security pass around your neck and keep it visible at all times. Don't touch anything. You can't wear your shades because it'll be dark. Take these now. I'll give you some more in two hours. Check the tablets before you take 'em, shit's been swapped from my bag before without me knowing. You know what a Tylenol looks like. Make sure it's spelt right on the pill. I've got codeine as well. Same goes for those. 

He rattled off a few of the key points when Dirk asked him to repeat what he'd just said. He got a punch to the shoulder in exchange for tacking on a clause about ensuring Cal got all the free drinks, but he just laughed and climbed out of the truck ahead of his uncle. 

Dave had seen his gigs before. So had Rose. They'd been to a handful in New York over the years with Roxy when he played all-ages venues and they'd been used as a test audience for his latest album - neither of them had told him straight up that they liked it. He was pretty sure he knew what to expect in Houston. 

He had no idea that he could ever be so wrong. 

Dirk was popular. He'd always known that people liked his shit and he knew the fanbase had exploded in the last few years, but it was hard to believe without the visual. People were wearing his merch shirts, with logos that Dave had seen drawn on the walls of Dirk's study a lifetime ago plastered on their chests. They sung along with choruses and cheered through verses. 

It took him longer than it should have to realise that if anyone in the room was going to get a halfway decent photo of the night, it was going to be him. He was only half hidden by the stage curtains because no one had told him not to sit there. He edged closer on his upturned milk crate to get a better shot and after snapping a few on his phone to upload to various social networks, he switched to the Nikon. 

Dirk saw Dave moving from the corner of his eye but there was nothing he could do to stop him without interrupting himself. When he realised what he was doing - climbing the lighting rig - he stopped sneaking glances because he didn't want to know. He could deal with it later. He transitioned seamlessly into the next song and the crowd went wild when Cal appeared on his shoulder almost instantaneously. 

Dave caught the moment. From his position three quarters of the way up the rig and with his right arm looped around a rail, he managed to turn around and snap a few shots of the crowd. He took advantage of his current location to capture a few more images then decided to climb back down before too many people noticed him. 

He didn't know how good the photos were. He wasn't expecting much because it was dark and he wasn't even sure he had the camera on the right setting to deal with that. He took a few more shots of the crowd from where he stood and then, when he realised the track was almost over, he snuck out into the middle of the stage and waited, camera ready.

He ended up with a photo of Dirk from behind, one arm holding the mic down by his side and the other up by his shoulder, adjusting Cal's weight so he didn't fall. It looked pretty good with the crowd ahead of him and even though the lighting wasn't the best, he could work with that. 

He darted back across to his milk crate before his uncle could turn around and catch him in the act. That one he was going to hold onto for a while. He had an idea but it was too soon to bring it up in conversation. Maybe once they could talk about more than bad jokes and swords again he'd mention it. 

Dirk caught his eye before the next song and raised an eyebrow over his glasses, lifting one finger to point up. Dave narrowed his own eyebrows in response and threw him a questioning look, unable to figure out what he was pointing at. 

"It's sturdy," Dirk said into the mic. "Get back up there and make yourself useful." 

Dave grinned.

+++

\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] at 12:48 --

TG: hello kabaya  
TG: shitfuck  
TG: *kanaya  
TG: just pretend i made a smother entrance than that  
TG: *smoother   
GA: Who Is This?   
TG: lmao sorry  
TG: im rosies mom nice to meet you   
GA: …  
GA: Excuse Me For Saying So But  
GA: Im Going To Kill Your Son   
TG: nah it wasn't him lol  
TG: totes just did some snoopin around  
TG: anyway  
TG: hi   
GA: Hi  
GA: Can I Help You With Anything   
TG: im p sure you can  
TG: so you n rose are totes a thang, rite?  
TG: *thing   
GA: Uh   
TG: no no no dont get me wrong i dont care  
TG: i mean i care because shes my firstborn spawn  
TG: i just thought it was polite and shit to ask   
GA: Then Yes We Are A "Thang"   
TG: did u just sass me kayana???   
GA: Kanaya   
TG: omfg you did it again  
TG: ur perf 4 her, u no that?   
GA: Thank You  
GA: You Had A Question   
TG: oh yeah lmao  
TG: so yesterday i asked her if she watned me 2 fly u over here 4 new years and she flipped her shit  
TG: like that was probs my fault 4 bein too presonal  
TG: *wanted  
TG: *personal  
TG: so i was thinnkin  
TG: *thinkin  
TG: do u think she'd liek it if i set up skype on the tv downstairs so u could talk on not a shitty laptop screen???  
TG: *like lmao i hate fucking that one up  
TG: kanana???   
GA: Im Here  
GA: When   
TG: when can u call?  
TG: probs during the day so i can go shopping or sumthin   
GA: Now Is Fine   
TG: lol like rite now??   
GA: Yes Right Now   
TG: totes not eager or n e thing r u??   
GA: No   
TG: okay so heres the game plan  
TG: u go and make urself look super cute  
TG: and ill go make myself look super cute to go shopping  
TG: and ill call u in ten or somethin from the tv then get rosie  
TG: sound good??   
GA: Yes   
TG: u use the same name on skype dontcha?   
GA: Yes The Same Screen Name   
TG: awesome  
TG: see u in ten  
TG: *wunk*  
TG: lamo  
TG: lol whatevs

\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] at 12:56 --

Rose ignored her mother the first three times she called. On the fourth shout Roxy switched to an irritating whine that only caused Rose to roll her eyes. She switched her Pesterchum status over to idle and stormed down the stairs and into the kitchen. 

"What?"

"Okay, Momma needs to go get some serious retail therapy because your kind just isn't cutting it these days," Roxy said, slipping her feet into a pair of shoes as she spoke. 

"You called me all the way down here to say that?"

"Well, that and to ask you if I should bring back dinner."

"If you wanted to."

"Okay," Roxy said. She put her hands up on either side of Rose's head and kissed her hair. "You kids have fun."

"Oh my God, please don't drive if you're drunk. Dave's in Texas this week."

"I wasn't talking about Dave." 

"What?"

"Turn around, hun."

Rose sighed but followed the instruction, just to humor her mother. From the living room television, Kanaya smiled at her and offered a small wave in greeting. She returned the gesture and took a step closer to the tv before glancing back at Roxy, who was standing beside the already open front door. 

"You did this."

"Who else would've done it? Seriously, Rosie. You even just told me the boys are in Texas. Anyway, I wasn't kidding about the retail therapy so see you later. I'll call when I'm leaving town."

"Okay," Rose said quietly, walking over to the couch. She sat down and stared at the image on screen, Kanaya still smiling at her from across the Atlantic. "Bye, Mom."

"Hello," Kanaya spoke first when she heard the door close.

"Hi," Rose replied absent-mindedly. 

Roxy had orchestrated the Skype call. Roxy had spoken to Kanaya to arrange a Skype call on the downstairs tv in an empty house. There wasn't even anything passively-aggressive about the situation. It was simply an act of motherly love that not even Rose herself could find a secret agenda behind. 

Perhaps there was something to be said for having a supportive mother after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third time's a charm on getting the text formatting right. Sorry.


	18. [A3A2]: why is he naked?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the kids hang out and they get both the best and worst birthday presents ever.

**November, 2012.**

"Hey, are you even listening to me?"

"Of course I am."

"Then what did I just say?"

"You said that you're an imbecile with two idiots for best friends."

"So wrong. John isn't even my best friend."

"Oh, so you've finally accepted that, have you?"

"Low blow, sister sister," Dave said. 

They'd only been sitting on the school bus for ten minutes before Rose had tuned out Dave's voice. She hadn't absorbed anything he'd said but it wasn't too far of a stretch to assume he'd been talking about something either John or Karkat had linked him to at midnight. 

"Please don't start rapping."

"You love it."

"No, I don't."

"You're a filthy liar and I'm so telling Mom when we get home."

"I dare you," Rose said flatly. 

Dave stared right at her. He knew he had the advantage because she couldn't tell if he was blinking or not, but after what felt like an eternity he was still the one to look away first. 

"Nah, not worth it," he said. He tapped out a reply to Karkat's latest message and sent it through before turning his attention back to Rose.

It had been almost a year since he'd learnt the truth about his family. He'd forgiven Roxy first and had gone on treating her as his mother, refusing point blank to see her as the aunt she was. He knew all too well that she'd given up so much for him and the least he could do was to keep calling her mom. He didn't think he'd ever even want to treat her as anything else. 

Rose would never stop being his sister but he'd always known that - most days she was not only his sister but his best friend as well, and he'd never seriously considered shutting her out the way he had with the adults. She'd given him the space he needed when he first found out, and he'd repaid her by listening to her side of the story, late at night, when everyone else was asleep. She felt like it had been her responsibility to remember, to realise that she'd never had a brother before the age of four. She felt terrible, because her lapse in memory was his loss of identity, and there was nothing she could have done about it before the previous winter. She'd cried, just once, and had assured him that he would be her brother until the day she died. 

Dirk had been the hardest to forgive. It had come about slowly, the transition from the silent treatment to small talk to seeking out advice as an attempt at an indirect apology. They didn't really elaborate on the choice of title. Dave had made it clear early on that even though he knew, it was too hard to start calling him dad, too uncomfortable for everyone. They stuck with Bro.

When August had come, he enrolled himself in the 11th grade as Dave Lalonde. No one had questioned his decision. 

"You're scared because she's better than you when she's drunk."

"She totally is not."

"Okay, perhaps not better but she's up to your standard. Try telling me that that's an impressive if not entirely useless skill to have," Rose said. 

"Useless for her, maybe. I'd fucking kill someone to inherit that shit."

"Because on some level you've always known that your rapping is sub-par and you're very aware it needs desperate improvement?"

"Whatever, nerd. You're just jealous."

"Did you just call me a nerd?"

"Yeah."

"Have you ever met yourself?"

"Yeah, I'm awesome."

"Really. What classes do you have today?"

Dave ignored her question in favour of continuing his conversation with Karkat. Apparently he'd been up most of the night still trying to write a script that would fry his brothers' laptop from the inside the next time he made a blog post over a thousand words long. It was hard to cut through all the sleep deprived bullshit he was spouting but it sounded like he'd finally almost succeeded. 

Dave had to decline the offer to test it out for him though. There were no rules that said one bro had to agree to fuck up his own laptop to test a shitty virus for another. 

"Ask me tomorrow," he said, sniggering at the walls of textual abuse Karkat was sending him.

"Why?"

"Because tomorrow I've got a Gym block and I'll sound rad as fuck."

"But today you have?"

"Art block, Music block, Bio, and History."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the single dork in our family of nerds," Rose said dramatically. She smirked to herself and went on reading the Psychology textbook open on her lap. 

"Yeah, but see, I know that you're totes jealous I'm doing better in biology than you ever did. Nothing lower than an A- so far."

"It's only November."

"What the fuck ever, I'm still kicking ass."

"You just keep thinking that."

"I'll just keep knowing it. You had Gregson last year, didn't you? The guy's an idiot. I mean, I started off the year thinking awesome, high school bio will be the absolute shit, right? So I did that bullshit where you answer questions in class and you do your homework and you fucking destroy the competition in the first assessment," Dave started. 

"You sucked up," Rose interrupted.

"Nah, that shit's for losers. Anyway, I did all that and was like oh yeah, I'm totally into all this and told him about my dead shit collection and he was just like whatever. What a douche. It's not like there's anyone else in there who's gonna talk to him about the dead shit jars in the lab."

"Maybe you should stop calling them dead shit jars."

"Fine, the preserved specimens. I'm pretty sure there's more in my bedroom than there is in the lab but that's another story altogether."

"It's one of those tales we'll be recounting about Mom in her old age, reminiscing about the times she flew abroad and brought you dead animals as souvenirs."

"Dude, Mom's never going to get old like that. I'm pretty sure she's on a mission to preserve her own internal organs." 

"She's been on that mission for years. She's got to be more than halfway to succeeding by now," Rose pointed out. 

"Yeah. But whatever, Gregson's a dick. So I'm basically gonna fuck him up by not fucking up any assessments so I screw up his whole grading curve."

"You know that only makes other students hate you, not your teachers."

"Stop trying to sabotage my plans."

"How's Music going?"

"A's."

"Art?"

"Bitch, please."

"English?"

"B-average."

"It appears I was mistaken earlier, you're a complete fucking nerd," Rose said. This time, she made the effort to look up from her textbook. 

"Oh snap, get me a fucking burn heal," Dave rolled his eyes. "And you're totally ignoring the fact I broke like six school records at the Athletics Championships last week."

"How are you going in math?"

"Shut the fuck up and read your stupid book, Rose."

"As I expected. Nerd."

"I hate you."

"I know," Rose sighed. "However will I go on knowing my dear sweet brother detests me so?"

"Save the fucking theatrics for your friends."

"At least I have friends."

"So do I," Dave said. He held up his phone to show Rose that he had an unread message, then flipped the device back around to read the alert. "Yeah, okay, who the fuck am I kidding? My friends are fucking douchebags."

+++

"Get in, losers, we're going shopping."

"Mother, no."

"It's a classic."

"No. Where's Bro?"

"He got busy," Roxy said, unlocking the minivan doors as the kids approached. Dave climbed up into the front passengers' seat while Rose got into the back. She slid the door closed as Roxy put the car into reverse and started backing the car out of the parking lot.

"Busy how?"

"He was on the phone when I left. Business shit or something. I think he's trying to line up another tour for early next year or something."

"Bitchin'," Dave said. He put his feet up on the dashboard and pulled out his phone to check Pesterchum. Still nothing. The chances were pretty high that Karkat had attempted to run his auto-fuck up script on a school computer. They were higher again that he'd been caught and put into detention. "Oh, yeah, I think my Art teacher's gonna call you later."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing. She just thinks I'm having an existential crisis or something." 

"Oh my God, what did you even _do_ to get that one? I mean, shit, last year Rose literally responded to any question with a line from some poem for like a week and all they said was they were concerned. How'd you get the existential crisis line?" Roxy asked. She turned the van out onto the highway and switched the radio over to the auxiliary channel for her iPod. 

"Jesus tits, Mom, not Taylor fucking Swift again."

"This song is hilarious. Now spill, boy." 

"Urgh, fine. I submitted all those photos I took of Paul last week."

"The ones where she was -"

"In a bunch of different kick ass costumes, yeah."

"Oh, is that all?"

"Yeah, what were you expecting?"

"I don't know, I thought you were just working on those photos for the hell of it."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"Huh," Dave mused aloud. "Why the fuck would I take photos of my lizard in tiny costumes for fun?"

"I don't know, why would my adult brother volunteer to make the costumes for your lizard?"

"Because they're both freaks," Rose pitched in from the back seat. 

"Shut up, Rose," Dave said, glancing up at her in the mirror on his visor. "You're not even part of this conversation."

"Aren't I? Well, I fucked that up by participating in it, didn't I?"

"Hey, watch your goddamn language," Roxy snapped. "You've got three seconds before we hit the point of no return if you want anything from town."

"Nah, I'm good."

"No, I don't need anything." 

"Good, because we passed that point like three minutes ago."

"So why did you even ask?" 

"Because, Dave, it's fucking polite," Roxy said with a smile. 

"Language, mother," Rose said.

"Very funny, Rosie. Anyway, did she grade the assessment or what?"

"Yeah, I got a B. She marked me down because it didn't exactly meet the criteria," Dave explained. He'd started up a conversation with John a few minutes earlier, hoping he'd check his phone on his lunch break, but it looked like he was busy as well. It was that or he'd had his phone confiscated again over a prank gone wrong. 

"What was the task?"

"We had to analyse some Picasso bullshit. I did it in class like two weeks ago."

"So instead of analysing the Picasso bullshit you took some photos of your lizard dressed as Wonder Woman?"

"Yeah, I totally nailed it." 

"No you didn't, you got a B. That's hardly considered 'nailing it'," Rose said. 

"Hey, we'll argue about this later," Roxy said and took one hand off the wheel to get Dave's attention. She gestured towards the radio when he finally looked up from his phone. "Who're you talking to?"

"No one. I'm leaving a buttload of messages for John, reminding Karkat that he's a shitty bro, and telling GC that Karkat's got the hots for her."

"Why?"

"Because he's a pussy and won't do it himself."

"I told you to stay out of that," Rose said.

"Hey, I'm just helping a bro and pointing out the facts."

"Have you spoken to her lately?"

"Yeah, she told me my last comic was awesome."

"She was lying, you know."

"Was she?"

"Yeah, no one likes those comics."

"Hey Rose, do me a huge ass favour and shut the hell up, okay?" Dave said. He flipped up the sun visor to indicate the subject was closed for conversation, but not before snapping a quick shot of the pair of them in the mirror. She rolled her eyes but Roxy was too preoccupied with the radio to notice and Dave was busy uploading the photo he'd just taken to both his Facebook and Tumblr. 

"Just be careful. I'm fairly certain they're playing a cautious game of cat and mouse on this one."

"Whatever. Hey, Mom, you said Bro's at home, right?"

"Mmm, why?"

"He made Paul's costumes, he's gonna want to know about the B." 

"He's home, but he's working. It sounded pretty serious now that I think about it," Roxy said. "No bugging him until after six I guess."

"Cool," Dave said. He tagged Rose on Facebook and did what he could with the Tumblr app. He'd fix it when he got home. He took another photo of his feet up on the dash and while it was a little blurry because of the moving car, it got the point across. He uploaded that one straight to Tumblr as well. "How d'you know it was serious?"

"Because he was using his serious adult voice."

"Holy shit, it's terrifying when he does that. Like, I know how he gets shit done because no one's gonna hear that voice and ignore it."

"Tell me about it. He was working out the best time for tour dates early next year. I dunno, ask him yourself." 

"Huh, that's a weird time of year for a major tour. He usually does the big ones in the summer," Dave pointed out. 

"Hey, I said I don't know."

"Weird."

"I know you are, baby."

"Hey!"

"You were kind of asking for it," Roxy said. She reached over to pat his knee sympathetically but he shoved her hand away and tried to look annoyed. 

She just laughed and pinched his thigh instead, knowing that he wouldn't even try to retaliate while she was driving.

+++

"Okay, so," Roxy slurred. Dirk raised an eyebrow at her from across the table but didn't say anything. "Guess what tomorrow is?"

"Monday," Dave said through a mouthful of lasagna. 

"Exactamundo! And you know what that means."

"That there's only another few weeks before Winter Break?"

"And?"

"And it's garbage day?"

"And it's your birthday!"

"Well, shit, Mom, why didn't you say so?"

Roxy giggled and topped up her glass. She reached over the table and sloshed a generous amount of gin into Dirk's soda and offered the bottle to the kids. Rose shook her head but Dave just stared, until a raised eyebrow from his uncle prompted him to reject the offer as well. 

"Anyway," she went on, dragging out her vowels. "My baby is turning sixteen. Sixteen! Like, _holy shit_. My _baby_ is turning sixteen!"

"I turned sixteen last year," Rose pointed out. "You said it was an insignificant event in modern society."

"I did not."

"Yes, you did. I cried for a week."

"Alright, stop fucking with her when she's drunk," Dirk interjected with a grin. "Just spit it out, Rox."

"What?"

"Tell 'em," he said.

"Oh! Right!" Roxy laughed. "We know last year your birthdays kinda got ignored on account of all the other shit that was going down, but we're not gonna talk about that. We got you both something totally awesome."

"Is it a family pass to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter?" Rose asked. "That's all I've been asking for since 2010."

"Nope!"

"Should I just stop asking?"

"No way, we should totally go after Christmas. But we got you something _way_ better than that."

"You think there's something better than an entire theme park dedicated to that wizard shit?"

"Nah, but he told me to talk it up," Roxy laughed, pointing a thumb at Dirk. "Anyway, here."

Dave and Rose both stared at the key their uncle dropped onto the table between them. Dave reached out for it first.

"It's a car key."

"Nicely observed," Dirk said. "It's not as awesome as mine, but it's close."

"You drive a heap of shit," Rose said bluntly.

"Hey, not all the time," Dave said hopefully. "Are you talking about the Camry or the truck in Houston?"

"Dude, the truck is just a way to get around because my baby's here. You know I'm talking about the Camry."

"Maybe it's not that bad?" Dave turned his attention back to his sister. She just shook her head at him. 

"There's no way in hell that key isn't older than I am."

"Wrong again, little lady," Dirk scoffed. "It's only as old as Dave."

"Sixteen!" Roxy exclaimed. "You gotta share it, by the way. But seriously, neither of you go anywhere except school anyway and you go there together so it's not like you'll be fighting over who gets the car and shit. You can argue about who drives though, that's totally a thing you can do," she said. "But whoever doesn't drive gets to ride shotgun, so there's that."

"We went to a party last night," Rose pointed out.

"And your mom picked you up at ten."

"Yes, but we still went."

"Is it ugly?" Dave asked, interrupting the others. They hadn't missed anything by leaving the party early.

"Nah, it ain't ugly," Dirk said. "It's hella ironic."

Dave couldn't tear his gaze away from his uncles' smirk until he worked out what it meant. It wasn't his amused expression, but it wasn't malicious. The longer he stared the more the smirk shifted to a grin, until Dirk was just sitting there beaming like an idiot. 

"Dave."

He looked away when Rose spoke.

"What?"

"No matter how you spin this, we're fucked."

"Nah," Roxy pitched in. "It's alright. You wanna go sit in it?"

"Please tell me it at least runs," Rose said.

"Most of the time," Dirk said. "I'll fix it up before you go back to school after the break."

"I always wanted a heap of shit for my sixteenth birthday. I don't know how you both knew exactly what I wanted," Dave deadpanned, tossing the key back down onto the table. It slid across the surface and clinked against Rose's plate. She didn't pick it up.

"What can I say, we love youse," Roxy grinned. "Happy birthdays!"

Dave couldn't find it in his heart not to say thank you, even thought it forced Rose to Pester him claiming that he'd betrayed her for the last time.

+++

The car was a heap of shit, but according to Dirk it was a salvageable heap of shit. Rose was determined to trade it in for a trip to Florida but Roxy continually shot down her attempts to discuss the issue. Dave didn't care either way. He'd laughed when he saw the so-called vehicle for the first time but he had no intention of driving it anytime soon. At least, not until the next weekend when he got his license and could legally drive it off a cliff.

He'd laughed even harder when Dirk offered to walk him through the repairs. 

It wasn't until dinner on the night of Rose's birthday - during the second consecutive meal of Strider-famous mac and cheese - that Roxy dropped the proverbial bomb. 

"If you're making this up I am going to go out of my way to never speak to you again," Rose said.

"Not lying, hun."

"When Dave calls me a decade from now to inform me that my so-called mother has died of liver failure, I'm not going to be in attendance at your funeral."

"Harsh, but fair," Roxy said. "Do you want to see the entrance tickets? I've totally got the tickets already."

"What do I get?" Dave asked. 

"I got you a week without those two gushing over their shitty slash fiction."

"Awesome. But seriously, Bro, what's my real gift?"

"I won't fill the void by talking about my shitty slash fiction."

"I fucking hate this family."

"Why?" Roxy asked. She tuned back into the boys' conversation as Dave stabbed at a chunk of his mac and cheese with a little too much force. 

"Nevermind," Dirk said. "I'd pay to see the pair of you in Florida though, that shit'll be hilarious." 

"Dude, I think you mean insufferable."

"I do, but I'm not enough of an idiot to say it to their faces."

"Just for that, dear brother," Rose started sweetly. "I'm going to ensure I spend an indecent amount of time Snapchatting you photos from our trip."

"Hell yeah, that's exactly what I want you to do, Rose. I'm so hellaciously upset that I didn't get a ticket to Douchebag Wizard Planet that all I can do is live vicariously through the six second photos you send me."

"C'mon, baby, there's gotta be something you want. Bottle of juice? Unnaturally skinny jeans? You want some more unnaturally skinny jeans, don't you?"

"Nah," Dave said, shutting down all of Roxy's suggestions. "I dunno. Can I think about it?"

"Yeah, go for it," Dirk said. "Pass the dish." 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 9:49 --

TG: hey so  
TG: what the fuck are they up to  
TT: I don't think they're up to anything. We didn't get anything last year due to circumstances out of our control.  
TG: you mean because i was being a fuckwit  
TT: Yes, I do mean that but I was attempting to spare your precious feelings.  
TG: fuck you  
TG: what the hell do i ask for  
TG: like we got a fucking car  
TG: and yeah its shitty but itll work eventually  
TG: and you got a trip to magic land  
TG: am i supposed to ask for something awesome  
TG: or like  
TG: new socks  
TG: do you think mom would buy me new socks  
TT: I think it's her job to supply you with new socks whenever you ask, regardless of how close it is to your birthday when you put in the request.   
TG: yeah i guess  
TG: do i ask for something huge or  
TG: it feels like a dick move to ask for something huge  
TT: I understand. Mom probably put an enormous amount of money into this trip but at the same time I'm going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and I could not give fewer fucks about the cost if I tried.   
TG: do you think theyd let me fly across the country  
TT: Where would you even go?  
TG: i dunno  
TG: last month i threatened to fly to washington and punch john for some stupid bullshit he pulled  
TG: itd be cool to come good on a threat like that once in a while  
TT: You'd fly across the country, punch your not-best friend in the face, then fly home again?  
TG: what  
TG: no  
TG: id fly across the country to punch him in the dick  
TT: You fell for one of his more convoluted Rickrolls, didn't you?  
TG: nope  
TT: For fucks' sake, Dave, it's 2012. I'm going to have to disassociate myself from you if you ever fall for that stunt again.  
TG: hes really good at faking you out on that shit okay  
TG: fuck  
TG: hes not lying about the pranking master shit  
TG: ill give him that  
TT: All I'm going to say is that that's probably a waste of a birthday gift.  
TG: yeah but id get to punch john in the dick for being an asshole  
TT: Make sure you say No Homo first.  
TG: duh wouldnt want to catch the gay  
TG: why do you think its been over a year since i hugged you  
TT: Because it's uncool to hug your elder sister?  
TG: no because i dont want to catch your gay  
TG: because youre a faggot  
TG: and i dont want to catch it  
TT: Yes, you explaining it makes it all the more hilarious.  
TG: im just kidding  
TG: i just havent hugged you because youre a spiteful bitch  
TT: And there it is.  
TG: but no seriously  
TG: what the fuck do i ask for for my sixteenth birthday

+++

"Dave?"

"Yeah?"

"You fuck my car up and I'll break your legs."

"Relax, I've got this," Dave said from his place in the drivers' seat of Dirk's Camry. "It's like a straight line from here to the city anyway, what's the big deal?" 

"The big deal is that Cal just ain't used to not riding shotgun," Dirk said. "And we've got a six hour drive and you know he's gonna be pissed by the end of it."

"Can't he just sit on your lap?" Dave asked, rolling his eyes at the comment. 

"Dude, lame."

"Yeah, well, so is Cal."

"Look, have you got everything?"

"We're going to like the one place on Earth where the stores are literally always open."

"Been for a piss?"

"Dude, I'm not six." 

"Hey, just asking," Dirk said, raising his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. "You've got an hour before I take over the driving."

"Fine," Dave huffed. "Hey, so do I put the car into gear before or after I start it?"

" _Dave_!"

"Shit, chill the fuck out. I was just screwing with you."

It had taken him a week to decide what he was going to ask for as a birthday gift. Roxy and Rose were flying out the morning after Christmas and instead of staying home alone he'd asked to drive down to New York City with Dirk for the weekend. Dirk had been apprehensive at first but he was heading down for work anyway and the alternative was leaving a newly sixteen year old alone in an isolated house filled with booze, swords, and the distinct possibility he'd ignore all of it in favour of lying in bed with his laptop and pet lizard for three days. 

They swapped over on driving duty every hour or so. Dirk had made the trip countless times alone but Dave had only just had his licence for two weeks. The closer they got to the city the more Dave's excitement grew and by the time they were forty minutes away, Dirk refused to let him drive any further. He'd agreed on the condition that as soon as they hit Manhattan he expected his uncle to pull over at the first Starbucks they saw.

When Dave had climbed back into the car, mocha frappuccino in hand, Dirk had taken a moment to point out just how deeply ashamed he was that he'd managed to somehow raise a filthy hipster in the middle of the woods. Dave just shrugged, blamed the internet, and threw a bagged muffin into the backseat for Cal. 

Between his own frequent flyer miles and Roxy's, Dirk couldn't remember the last time he'd paid cash for a hotel. He checked them in at the front desk and before he could even put his wallet away, Dave had darted back across the street to pick up a hot coffee. Dirk just rolled his eyes and punched out a message for him. 

\-- timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 5:51 --

TT: I told you that iced bullshit was a bad idea in December.  
TG: never  
TG: you want anything  
TT: Hell fucking no, broski.   
TG: your loss man  
TT: Yeah, I'll be feeling the sting of that for weeks. I'm unloading the car, I'll meet you upstairs. We're room 413.  
TG: awesome

\-- timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 5:53 --

Dave picked up his order - a caramel macchiato with extra caramel - and headed back across the street. He darted between the traffic and jumped up the gutter when he reached the other side. He took out his phone in the elevator and snapped a photo of the Starbucks cup and uploaded it to his tumblr and tagged it with Karkat's URL of the week to prove he was in the city. He'd already sent at least six different pictures of taxis and buses and street signs, but he was almost certain that Karkat still thought he was faking.

He shifted the phone to his fist and knocked lazily on the door with his coffee-free hand. 

"Hey, let me in, asshole," he said in between replying to messages. The door unlatched from the inside and he pushed it open without looking up. "I'm just gonna assume you've already put Cal in my bed and get in a pre-emptive fuck you." He kicked the door closed behind him. 

"Hey, watch it. How'd you even get in?"

"You opened the door, dickweed," Dave said. "Wait, what?"

He looked over his shoulder at his uncle, who was still standing in the doorway carrying two backpacks and a crate of equipment.

"Devilfucking dickens, Dirk! You could have thought to tell a fellow you were bringing a child!" 

Dave's head snapped back around when the stranger spoke.

"Shit, don't do it, kid!" 

"Jesus fucking Christ, Bro! Why the fuck is he naked?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing about John still rickrolling people for shits and giggles in 2012? I wrote that in November. I wrote that two months before rickrolling became a thing for a while again and I'm sorry but I'm not sorry because it's a very John thing to do.


	19. [I7]: The Lalonde Kids Go To A Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the kids party hard. Not.

**November, 2012.**

"What time is it?"

"Eight."

"Are you fucking kidding me? That's it? It feels like we've been here forever already." 

"We've been here for maybe an hour."

"Exactly. Forever," Dave said. "So when can we go?"

Rose sighed as he dropped down onto the couch beside her in favour of finding something else to do with his time. 

He didn't want to be there. The party wasn't even being hosted by anyone in his year, but there were plenty of tenth graders hanging around. It was mostly juniors and seniors though, all kids who were ambivalent towards him because they'd never been forced to sit in a classroom with him. Rose was popular enough with her peers that her little brother was nothing more than someone else to just ignore. 

She'd been convinced by her friends that the party would be fun because it was one of the last weekends before the holidays and it was going to be a big one. Rose was only there to humour them but Dave had been forced to go by Roxy, who claimed he needed to leave the house for longer than it took to run a few miles and back.

He'd only put up a fight until Roxy had given him _the look_. He'd gone quietly after that.

"At ten, or as soon as we meet the minimum party requirements."

"Oh my God, that's like another two fucking hours. Can't we just do the generic party bullshit and get out of here?" 

"No. I've never resorted to that before and I don't plan to tonight. Find something to do." 

"It's not that big a deal though," Dave said. "I mean, fuck. We're not allowed to go home until we do typical party shit? Most parents would ground their kids for doing the things Mom tells us we have to do." 

"If you can complete both tasks in the next fifteen minutes, I'll consider it," Rose said. "But considering you don't have a girlfriend, I think you'll find it difficult to go from that to second base in the given timeframe." 

"Fuck you. I could have anyone if I wanted 'em bad enough."

"Then by all means, dear brother, prove it," Rose said, cocking an eyebrow. 

"Can't I just do the five shots instead?" Dave asked exasperatedly, knowing that he'd been beat. "I could do that. I know a bunch of people who think you're hot, so you take care of that and I'll go for the booze we'll be home in like an hour."

"I'm not going to cheat on my girlfriend just so you can go home and make kissy faces at your lizard until two o'clock in the morning." 

"Nah, I already did that this morning. I gave her a bath and everything and she was so awesome about it, she just sat in the sink like 'yo, why don't we do this more often or something you asshole?'."

"Then why are you so desperate to go home?"

"I was in the middle of something when we left."

"Like?"

"Jerking off."

"I'm sure you were. But whatever you were _really_ doing must be terrifically embarrassing if you've gone for your usual last-ditch effort to get people to stop nosing. I wonder why that is," Rose said, her lips twisting into a sly grin. 

"What can I say? It's a hell of a time waster," Dave shrugged. 

He'd actually been working on a comic. He had it all written and most of the pages were already sketched out, but he'd gotten a little carried away with the story and instead of the planned five pages, it was going to be about twelve. He'd finished three and was cutting it close to the date he'd need it finished. 

There were less than two weeks until Rose's birthday.

"No doubt. But the fact remains that I'm not going to find someone to grope just so you can go home early."

"Oh, come the fuck on," Dave said, slumping down further on the couch. "You want to go home just as much as I do."

"Yes, but I've realised that the bargaining chip will rise every time we give in."

"Huh?"

"Every time we use the way out, that being second base and getting tipsy, it's going to increase," Rose explained. "Our mother is afflicted with too much love for us and she's blinded by it. She thinks that doing those things will make us happy which in turn will make her happy. So if we take the easy way out this time, we won't escape the next social gathering for anything less than half a dozen bong hits and a bottle of gin."

"Huh. That's not that bad. I bet I could do that, no problem. Aren't teenagers basically immune to hangovers and shit?"

"We're not immune, no. We just tend to bounce back more quickly than an adult would."

"See? I could totally do that then."

"No, Dave. I want to keep the escape plan for when I really need it. This isn't one of those times," Rose said. 

"Fine," Dave huffed. "So, just out of curiosity, because you brought it up and I'd feel hella rude not asking, who's got the bong?"

"Travis Barkley."

"Oh man, no fucking fair. He's a douche."

"Hmm, shame about that," Rose said disinterestedly. "Please stop asking me to give in to Mom's insanity."

"Fine," Dave sighed heavily. "I'm going for a piss, save my seat," he said, standing up from the couch. Rose just watched as he stood up and twisted to crack his back in two places. 

"You're going to find Travis, aren't you?"

"Just save my seat, Rose."

" _Dave_. You realise what you're about to do counts as participation, don't you?"

"Shit, sister, the last thing I want to do is participate," Dave said dramatically. He stopped suddenly when Rose reached out a hand and dragged him back onto the couch by one of his belt loops. "Dude, what's your fucking damage? I was just going for a piss, shit, you think I'd be allowed to go and do that on my own, but apparently not."

"My _damage_ is that yes, Travis is a douche, but he's also a con artist and he'll only rip you off in the long run," Rose said quietly, leaning over so only Dave could hear her. 

"How would you even - are you fucking kidding me?"

"No, I don't think I am."

"You're shitting me. You, of all people?"

"Oh, relax, would you? It was purely for research," Rose said, that coy smile finding its way onto her face. "Would you like a chip?"

"Research, huh?"

"Well you can't expect me to write accurate fanfiction without adequate life experience, can you?"

Dave cocked an eyebrow in question but Rose simply continued to smile back at him, shaking the bowl of chips until he got the hint and took it off her hands.


	20. [I8]: Karkat Is A Serial URL Changer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we (finally) meet Karkat.

**September, 2012**

Instead of throwing his wireless mouse out the window in a fit of anger, Karkat stopped and forced himself to count to ten. There was no fucking way he'd been found again. There was no way it was even possible for him to have been found again, at least not this quickly. He'd only had the new tumblr URL for a week. But there it was, right in front of him. 

His brother had tracked him down, again, and re-followed him. 

He started up one of his password cracking programs and let it cycle through the possibilities. It wouldn't take long because his brother's passwords were never that secure, but it saved him time and guesswork. He loaded up two new tabs while he waited for the results, one with his own tumblr account and one with Kankri's. It took less than a minute for the software to get back to him and he copied the password over and logged in to his brother's account. 

He didn't want to change anything. Following eighty porn blogs had been funny the first few times but since then he'd been more focused on simply getting in and unfollowing his own account as quickly as he could. He got everything set up in that tab, flicked over to Kankri's blog and unfollowed his own account from there. He swapped back to his own blog again, turned off submissions, changed his URL, and saved the changes. 

As soon as that was done, he logged the fuck out of everything and went to get himself a coke. Congratulations, asshole. You managed not to break another expensive mouse. You deserve that coke. 

It wouldn't take Kankri long to realise why his next submission wasn't going through. 

They'd been through this process before. It happened every few weeks and the result was always the same. Karkat would hack into his brother's account, unfollow himself, then change his URL. Kankri knew he'd do it and still insisted on tracking him down again. He'd lost track of how many times he'd changed his URL. He didn't even know why he bothered, he hated using the site. 

He prefered using Twitter because the character limit prevented Kankri from using it for more than a few days at a time. He just got too frustrated by the 'oppression of free speech'. 

None of his friends used Twitter as often as he did though. He liked the way it forced him to channel his rage into something concise and to get to the point. Dave had thousands of tumblr followers spread out over his separate personal, art, and photography blogs, then more again on the sideblogs he didn't link back to the others. Sollux used everything for a while and seemed to rotate through his favourite social media outlets on a week-by-week basis. Jade sometimes used Twitter, mostly to humour him, but she did seem to prefer that over any of the other options. John was completely fucking useless no matter what they all tried to get him to use and they'd given up, accepting that they'd only ever be able to harass him through Pesterchum or Snapchat. 

They'd never bothered trading Facebook pages. Something about it just seemed lame, which was exactly what they'd all told John when he mentioned it as the one social network he actually liked. 

By the time Karkat sat back down at his computer, he could hear movement on the other side of his bedroom wall. He checked the clock. It had only been five minutes or so since he'd done his URL swap, but he knew that was more than enough time for Kankri to shit out a five hundred word rant when he was as pissed off as he was. 

He waited until he heard his brother's chair slam into the edge of his desk, then jammed a pair of headphones over his ears because he knew they'd only rile Kankri up more.

Three, two, one. Enter Vantas the Elder. 

"You did it again, didn't you?"

"Stop tracking me down and I'll stop doing it."

" _Excuse me_? You have no idea that you're enabling these people! By contributing to their discussions and spreading their false accusations you're part of the problem. No one is ever going to take _me_ seriously if they know I'm associated with someone like _you_."

"So stop trying to associate with me. Problem fucking solved."

"I can't just sit by and watch you perpetuate the vicious cycle of hate speech that circulates so widely between these kinds of people," Kankri said, matter-of-factly. 

"I reblogged a fucking photo. It was a photo of the same god damn city we live in. What the fuck is that even perpetuating? The myth that we've got taxis?"

Karkat didn't bother removing the headphones. He wasn't listening to anything but they cancelled out a lot of background noise and he was pretty fucking certain that Kankri's voice counted as background noise. When his comment didn't get an immediate response, he opened one of Dave's shitty sideblogs and scrolled slowly down the page, looking for something he'd seen the previous afternoon. He knew Kankri was looking over his shoulder because he heard the distinct noise of disapproval when he found the post arguing about the necessity of trigger warnings. 

He zoomed in, just to make sure the screen was legible from a distance.

"Okay, now you're just being petty and petulant. There was no reason for you to go and do that but you did it anyway and you waited until I was in the room to do it. That's the exact kind of antagonistic behaviour that I've come to expect from you and I know you're doing it deliberately to cause as much offense as you possibly can because it's not as if those are even your opinions you're sharing, they're someone else's and you're simply helping them spread further out into the vast unending matrix of the internet. Eventually I'm going to have to seek help in order to stop you myself." 

"Oh my fucking God," Karkat snapped, still facing his computer screen. "Do you ever stop and listen to yourself? Can you not see the goddamn hypocrisy in everything you say and do? You're telling me to stop doing shit that isn't offending anyone except you, when you're the one who spends half his fucking time trying to find me just so you can tell me I'm pissing you off. Stop hunting me down and get a fucking hobby or something you complete and total assmunch!" 

"See, that right there, that's exactly what I'm talking about," Kankri said, gesturing towards Karkat. "You've got no idea that what you're doing is offensive in almost every way, _especially_ what you did this morning."

"What, when I threw up that textpost about you? Actually, yeah, you should fucking be offended by that one because shock and fucking horror it's all god damn true. I'll go back and put some fucking trigger warnings on it," Karkat went on. "Hashtag 'Kankri is a retard', hashtag 'deliberately being an asshole', hashtag 'I'm doing it on purpose and don't give a literal fuck!"

"So stop deliberately being a fucking asshole!"

"I'll stop when you stop."

"I," Kankri started. He paused to clear his throat and stood up a little straighter, folding his arms across his chest. "You're too young to remember the worst of it."

That was the comment that finally convinced Karkat to spin his chair around to face his brother.

"No, fuck you, you can't play the 'I had a shitty time in elementary school because I was born on the subcontinent' card, that's a cheap fucking shot and you goddamn know it," he snapped.

"You wouldn't know, you were born here."

"I wasn't born to different parents!"

"That hardly matters. You were too young at the time to remember everything they said and everything I was accused of being involved in, they only left you out of it because you were lucky enough to have actually been born in New York."

"Oh my fucking God! It's not like being born here ranks me higher on the magical fucking scale of goddamn privilege! 

"I don't think you realise just how much higher it does rank you," Kankri said flippantly.

"You can fucking see goddamn Central fucking Park from your fucking bedroom window you absolute shitstain!"

"Geographical location has nothing to do with privilege." 

"Get out," Karkat said, flatly.

"Excuse me?"

"Get the fuck out of my room before I find a geographical location to shove so far up your ass you're tasting dirt for a fucking week!"

"That's so o -"

"No," Karkat said, as he jerked the headphone cord out of its jack. "Just shut the fuck up, okay?" He snatched up his phone and wallet and jammed them into the pockets of his jeans. "Get out of the way."

"No. Where are you even going? It's a Wednesday night, you know you have school tomorrow and I have classes and I honestly can't believe you roped me into this argument right now because I have a paper due on Friday that I need to finish, and, hey!" Kankri shouted as Karkat shoved him aside to get out of his own bedroom. "You didn't answer me! Where are you going?"

He followed Karkat through the apartment and found him lacing up his sneakers by the front door. 

"Not here," Karkat said, brushing back past him to go and collect his laptop and school bag. "You can be the one to tell Dad why I'm not here when he gets home later."

"That doesn't explain where you're going. You're really overreacting about nothing, you know. It just makes you look juvenile."

"I'm going to Sollux's, because at least his fucking brother has a legitimate goddamn reason to be an asshole."

"That's just plain rude. You're just making fun of the disabled now," Kankri huffed, slouching against a wall with his arms folded across his chest.

"No, I'm really fucking not. He's got _brain damage_ and even he knows you're a colossal douche. Later," Karkat said. He slammed the front door shut behind him and set off out into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry but not sorry for two consecutive intermissions. It needed to be done, 1, because this needs to happen before, not after, the next chapter, and 2, you think I'm not going to capitalise on the suspense from the closest thing this fic has to a cliffhanger? But in all seriousness, this needed to happen now is all.


	21. [A3A3]: no mom you actually need to show paul my selfie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a lot of stuff happens and jokes set up in act 1 start to pay off.

**December, 2012.**

For as long as Dave could remember, he and Rose had been pestering their mother about her love life. It had started as a joke they inherited from Dirk before it was even funny. For years, he'd been annoying Roxy with questions about who she was dating and at some point, the kids had invited themselves to the game. She'd never denied the existence of a partner but she did keep changing her story about who they were. 

Only once had they questioned their uncle on the same topic. He told them it was none of their business and that unless they wanted to wake up drowning in puppet ass, they wouldn't ask again. They hadn't ever brought it up after that. 

Dave had always thought he hooked up with people on the road. That was just what happened when someone had a moderate amount of fame and success to their name. Brief relationships that lasted as long as a tour were common enough that the general rule probably applied to his uncle as well.

He hadn't ever factored in the possibility that they weren't supposed to talk about it because Dirk might have been protecting someone. 

"For fucks' sake, how did you even get in here?"

"Oh, pshaw! You've been checking into hotels under my name for the last three years, you complete and utter dingbat. It's not a frightfully difficult challenge to prove that I'm myself, you know. I told the desk to just pretend you were the one checking in when you arrived," Jake explained. "Oh, hello, by the way. Jake English," he added, extending a hand to Dave. 

"What the _fuck_ , Bro?"

"Dude, chill. It's all cool," Dirk said. He put the equipment crate down and flicked up the lock on the door. The last thing he needed was anyone escaping in the state they were in. 

"What the fuck!" 

"Dude, I said chill, okay?"

"And I said what the fuck! Three years? Three _years_ and you never said anything?"

"Actually, it's seven," Jake pitched in. 

"Seven?" Dirk questioned.

"Yeah, mate. Last week."

"No, I know it was last week but I didn't realise we were up to seven years already."

"Can someone please explain what the fuck is going on here?" Dave snapped. He made sure to interrupt them before the conversation could get too far from the original point as he threw himself down on the couch in what was most likely an unnecessary display of theatrics. He was missing an important part of the story and there was no way he was going anywhere without a reasonable explanation. 

If nothing else, he was comforted by the fact that Jake wasn't actually naked and had just been in the process of changing his shirt. He wasn't even going to ask about the shorts.

Dirk sighed and took a seat opposite him on the end of one of the beds. Dave lifted his glasses long enough to shoot him an irritated look before lowering them again. In return, his uncle cocked an eyebrow in what was clearly intended as a display of authority as he took control of the conversation. He sat up a little straighter on the couch and told himself it was only because it was proving impossible to finish his coffee lying down. 

"That's Jake," Dirk started. "I've got no fucking idea why he's here."

"Dude, from what I just heard, even I've got a pretty good idea."

"I've got no fucking idea why he's here," Dirk repeated. "As far as I knew he was staying at a hotel down the block."

"I am. I got off work a few hours ago and thought I'd go for a bit of a stroll and as I walked past I decided it might be nice if I were here to greet you," Jake explained as he re-buttoned his shirt. 

"You know the San Diego Zoo is across the country, right?" Dave pointed out, gesturing to the logo on the left breast pocket of Jake's khakis.

"Long story," Dirk said dismissively. "What happened to your shirt, anyway?"

"Long story," Jake sighed. "Should I go?"

"Nah, sit down. Look, we were gonna go meet up with him for dinner anyway," he went on. Dave impassively sipped at his macchiato. "Sorry."

"No biggie, man. I mean, I feel like a dick because I never got him any cards for Fathers' Day and stepdads are fathers too, you know," Dave said. 

"Whoa, Nelly! You're getting just a bit too excited there," Jake interjected, wide-eyed as he shook his head dismissively. 

"He's not your stepdad."

"Bro, I just heard you say it's been seven years. He might as well be." 

"Dave," Dirk warned. 

"What? It's been totally legal here for over a year, you know."

"Dave."

"I don't give a shit, Bro. I give a shit that you lied but what the fuck ever, that's been kind of a running theme lately," Dave said. He planted the empty cup down on the table beside him hard enough that the paper base crumpled slightly. 

"Kid, listen."

"I'm all ears, man. All fuckin' ears."

"You're freaking out."

"No I'm not."

"Yeah, you are. You've got that weird twitchy grin thing happening."

"Do not."

"I want ten more seconds then you can go lock yourself in the bathroom, or go for a walk, or whatever you want, you dig?"

"Yeah, okay. Eight seconds."

"You can call your mom or your sister and bitch all you want, but if you put anything about this on any part of the internet, I'll literally break every one of your fingers. This shit isn't about you," Dirk explained slowly. "Dave?"

"Nothing in writing, no leaks, sure. Can I go?"

"You've got one hour. Haul ass back here by then or I'll eat your half of the pizza."

"Okay," Dave said. "Later."

Dirk waited for the room door to slam before he let out the breath he'd been holding. He fell backwards and stared up at the ceiling, counting to ten in his head before he said anything else. 

"So that's Dave."

"Does he always dress like that?"

"Don't even get me fuckin' started. I've got no idea why he thinks those shitty flannel shirts are cool," Dirk groaned. He turned his head to look over at Jake when he lay down beside him. "Sup."

"I sort of buggered that up for you, didn't I?"

"Yeah. It's probably better we just got it over with though. He's just pissed with the lying, you know that, right? He was being a dick with the other shit."

"Of course, mate. You raised him, he wasn't going to be anything short of a complete tosser."

"Yeah, that's helping."

"I didn't say hello, did I?"

"Nope."

"Hello."

"Hi, Jake."

+++

"Seven years!"

"What?"

"Seven years!"

"Dave, you need to provide me with at least the bare minimum of contexts here."

"Bro and some guy called Jake. I always thought he banged groupies."

"For lack of a better word, ew," Rose said. She hadn't wanted to answer her cell phone when her brother's name flashed up on the screen, but ignoring him would only lead to a more painful conversation later. "What's he like?"

"I don't know. Not what I was expecting. He seems nice enough. Looks like a total dork though."

"So why did you run away and call me as soon as you got the chance?"

"I didn't run," Dave said. "I just hightailed it outta there without looking back, it's totally different. We're having pizza in an hour." 

"It's definitely amusing that a little over a year ago you didn't even have one father."

"They're not married."

"Huh."

"What do you mean, 'huh'?"

"I mean I find it reasonably surprising that they're not."

"How are you not pissed off with any of this?"

"Because he's an adult and can do whatever he likes. I'm hardly in a position to control the decisions my uncle makes and if they've been together for seven years then I'd say that proves he's more than capable of making them on his own," Rose said. Ahead of her, Roxy had stopped and turned around to wait for her. She waved her on with an annoyed look and slowed her pace even further. 

"It's different for you!" Dave exclaimed. "It's not the second life-altering thing he's lied to you about!"

"How does it affect your life?"

"What?"

"How does our uncle being in a steady relationship affect your life?"

"Because he's not even my fucking uncle! He's my dad! And that means this English guy is kind of in the same position and I didn't know jack about him for _seven goddamn years_!" 

"My office isn't taking appointments until the third of January, but I can book you in for the first available slot then, if you like. It's rather interesting since I always had you pegged for crippling mother issues in another three years, not this."

"Fuck you, Rose," Dave swore. He disconnected the call on her mid-giggle. 

He didn't make it past the hotel lobby. He dropped down into an armchair by the door and put his feet up on the edge of the nearest table. He linked his phone up to the complimentary wifi and opened Pesterchum. 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ghostyTrickster [GT] at 6:27 --

TG: hey john  
TG: john  
TG: hey  
TG: john  
TG: you there bro  
TG: egbert  
TG: dude i can see you online  
TG: you gotta stop doing this shit every time  
TG: itd be cool if one day i said hey egbert whats up  
TG: and you just said hey dave not much  
TG: like a normal best bro  
TG: im totally having a midlife crisis over here  
TG: i need sympathy  
TG: yours will do  
TG: ooh burn   
GT: jeez, dave! i was just in the bathroom.   
TG: yeah i needed that info   
GT: hey, aren't you in new york?   
TG: yeah i live there doofus   
GT: i mean the city. you should totally go and see karkat!   
TG: im going to his place tomorrow   
GT: cool. so what's your midlife crisis about and why should i care?   
TG: my uncles a douche   
TG: end of story   
GT: oh man, he didn't throw puppets over the top of the shower again, did he?   
TG: not this week  
TG: hes just taken douchetastic to the next level   
GT: like a megadouche?   
TG: exactly bro  
TG: hes a fucking megadouche   
GT: cool!  
GT: what's the difference between a douche and a megadouche?   
TG: it means i have to get him a new hat  
TG: like one of those things the pope wears  
TG: its ironic and indicative of someones status as a megadouche at the same time   
GT: is there such a thing as the pope hat store?   
TG: egbert meet the internet  
TG: the internet  
TG: egbert  
TG: you can get anything on the internet   
GT: even megadouche pope hats?   
TG: especially megadouche pope hats   
GT: i think you're letting the metaphor get away from you, dave.   
TG: hell naw  
TG: i know exactly where the metaphor is going   
GT: and where's it going?   
TG: off the fucking handle is where  
TG: fuck  
TG: i gotta go   
GT: the metaphor ran, didn't it?   
TG: you think i couldnt catch it  
TG: state fuckin champ egbert  
TG: i could catch any runaway metaphor before it even realised it was running   
GT: bye, dave!

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ghostyTrickster [GT] at 6:46 --

He thought about hurling his phone across the lobby but stopped himself before the iPhone left his fist. It wouldn't survive the impact and there was no way Dirk would just get him a new one. He'd have to jump through hoops with Roxy like he had when he ran over his previous cell while he was practicing 360 kickflips in the garage. She'd forced him to spend a week using her old Nokia before she ordered him a new 4S. 

Instead of destroying his cell in a fit of unfounded rage, he scanned through his notifications. A few reblogs on tumblr on each of his blogs, plus a handful of new followers. Three Snapchats from Rose, two from John, and six from Jade. A bunch of alerts from twitter. Spam emails in every account. 

An unnaturally high number of likes on Facebook. 

He hadn't posted anything there in more than seven hours. He'd thrown a few shitty pictures of the highway and its rest stops up on his photography blog but he kept most of the bullshit off Facebook. There was no reason for him to be getting hundreds of alerts on a social network that he used primarily because it was the easiest way to harass the kids at school. 

Someone had tagged him three hours earlier. 

It was a picture of him sitting in the drivers' seat of Dirk's car, scowling, but with both hands still on the wheel. He hadn't been able to flip him off until after the photo had already been taken. He scrolled down to the caption below. 

'DMV fucked up and gave the nephew a licence. Check out his shit at /turntechGodhead.'

+++

"Dude, this is a pretty nice building." 

"Yeah, I noticed the severe lack of meth addicts on the stoop," Dave agreed. "Please don't be embarrassing."

"What?" 

"You heard me. I'm not saying it again."

"When have I ever been embarrassing?"

"You brought Cal, man. That's fucked."

"Hey, he doesn't like being stuffed in safes and I don't trust the maids."

By the time Dave had gone back up to the room the night before, Jake had already left. He figured that the best way to say thanks for the shout-out was to say nothing at all, so he kept his mouth shut and devoured half of the waiting pizza without making eye contact with his uncle. 

He'd slept well enough despite the ever-present traffic noise of the city. When they set off the next morning, Dave stuffed the free hotel cookies into his pockets for later.

Dirk's gig wasn't until nine that night. He didn't have to be on-site until seven and he'd promised that as part of the all-inclusive birthday trip, Dave was given full permission to meet up with one of his internet friends for the day. He'd added a clause about having the authority to revoke the permission at any time if the kid turned out to be a sociopath, or they had to to dodge gunfire to make it to the apartment. He'd had to tag along to be able to enact the clause but Dave knew better than to turn it into a federal issue. 

He had work to do anyway, and the city was one big wifi hotspot.

"Just leave him in the backpack," Dave muttered, raising a hand to knock on the front door of the 16th floor apartment.

"I can't promise anything. Hey, don't start the eyeroll shit at me. I know when you're doing it."

"Dude, you're standing behind me, I'm facing the same way you are, and I'm wearing glasses with the darkest legal tint and best UV filtering you get that aren't designed for mountain climbing." 

"Yeah, your optometrist says you're probably gonna need to try wearing those ones we paid a fortune for last checkup full time if you're still getting migraines by April," Dirk said. 

"Fucking what?"

"Hey look, I think your friend is coming." 

Dave managed to stand his ground. He wanted to turn and ask why the fuck that was a thing Dirk had thought he needed to lie about. It wasn't as if no one had ever mentioned the possibility of that being a necessity at some point down the line. He hadn't even known they could cram so many things into one lens before they'd given him the new set to try out. They'd bumped up the UV filtering to cover the full spectrum on top of his already dark tint. For the first time, he'd let them add in a vision prescription since it had jumped up a step or two in the previous six months and he was getting frustrated enough with the slight deterioration that he was willing to try something new. He wasn't sure if they were working as well as they were supposed to, but he'd been keeping a tally and his migraine count had dropped slightly since he'd started wearing them.

Despite all that, Dirk seemed to have decided that any other lies were going to look trivial after the Jake revelation. 

They could hear shouting from inside the apartment right up until the door unlatched from the inside and swung open. They were greeted by a glowering boy half a head shorter than Dave, who made a point of staring from one of them to the other. 

"You brought your fucking uncle?"

"Holy shit, you're black." 

"Scandinavians are black compared to you. I prefer 'person of interest brown' if you want to get fucking specific. Let's get the fuck out of here before _he_ gives you a lecture."

"No way, I totally want to meet him in person."

"No, you don't. Let's go," Karkat snapped. He pulled the door shut behind him and brushed past Dave to lead the way back out of the apartment building. "He hasn't shut up all morning because I made the fucking mistake of telling my parents we were hanging out today."

"Dude, why'd you tell them?"

"So they knew to call the cops if you turned out to be a god damn serial killer, that's why."

"Awesome. Bro's here in case you were actually a pedophile."

"You two idiots know you've been Skyping each other for years now, don't you?"

"Shut up, man," Dave said. "So what do kids do around here?"

"We make wacky friends and hang out in coffee shops and never fucking work but still manage to pay rent in the city." 

"I know you're being sarcastic but we should totally do that." 

"Great. I've already got the wacky friend," Karkat said. He furiously pressed the elevator button over and over in an attempt to get away from his own house as fast as he could. 

"I like this kid," Dirk grinned. 

"Fuck off," Dave said. "So where's your local Starbucks?"

"Are you shitting me, Lalonde? There's one literally every six hundred feet in this god damn city."

"Which is totally awesome because it means I'm never more than three hundred feet away from one. Left or right?"

"Left," Karkat sighed. "Is he joking? Please tell me he's joking." 

"No way, kid," Dirk said. "We're so far north that I think we've got a local Tim Hortons and even that's like a hundred miles away. He's on a mission to get something from every store in town."

"You can see three of them from the front fucking door," Karkat said, gesturing wildly as they exited the elevator once it reached the ground floor. 

"Yeah, and?" Dave asked. "Don't underestimate my ability to stomach a liquid diet of caffeinated sugar for three days, Vantas."

Karkat might have doubted him, but Dirk had witnessed the spectacle first hand almost a year earlier in Houston. He hadn't said anything at the time because if all it took to keep Dave happy was a potentially dangerous amount of frappuccinos, he wasn't going to be the one to point out why that was a bad idea in the long run. 

It was a novelty for Dirk to see his kid hanging out with other kids. He'd never had friends come over after school or on weekends, and Dirk was sure he could count the times Dave had visited friends' houses on one hand. He'd tagged along with Rose to some of the parties held by the year above but inevitably they'd both wanted to be picked up no later than eleven. 

Internet friends had been a good thing. Neither Dirk nor Roxy had discouraged either of the kids from building friendships online. They kept tabs on what they were doing and asked enough questions to work out that the friends they had made were actually other kids. Dirk had met the ones they both talked to regularly, having invited himself to sit in on their voice calls a few times. He'd been on the receiving end of a lecture about internet safety from Karkat's older brother, given John some genuine feedback and advice on how to start composing his own music, and helped Jade with her physics homework. He'd talked to most of the others as well, over the years. It had always amused him that Dave played down the famous family member thing. Even years earlier, he'd just told John that he had an uncle who 'kinda knew about music'.

They were all good kids, really, just searching for the friends that they couldn't find closer to home. 

Who was he to judge if it turned out that they did exactly the same thing once they were in the same room? 

With the exception of a fistbump and a punch to Dave's upper arm for some smartass comment, he and Karkat might as well have been back at opposite ends of the state. When Dirk realised that they were serious about setting up their laptops on the low Starbucks tables, he just sat at the next one over with his back to them and took out his own Macbook and headphones. 

"Hey, Lalonde, the fuck's he doing?"

Dave looked up from his conversation with John a few minutes later and sighed. It was inevitable when they were in the city. It didn't happen as often at home and that was probably the only thing he appreciated about living so far from civilization that you couldn't even call it the sticks. 

"Just pretend you don't know him."

"Oh my fucking God, is that a doll?"

"Nah, it's just Cal. Ignore them."

"Holy shit!"

"Dude, I said just ignore them, it'll stop eventually," Dave said. "You want another coffee?"

"I don't ever want to drink any of this overrated shit, let alone right now while there's a literal flock of deadbeats surrounding your uncle," Karkat replied. "Why the fuck is there a literal flock of deadbeats surrounding your uncle?"

"They recognised him. And he's an epic fucking douchebag who can't resist the urge to get Cal out and show him off. I'm buying the coffee."

"Then sure, go ahead and waste your money on it. Do you mean Cal as in Lil' fucking Cal?"

"Vantas," Dave snapped. "Just don't look and it'll go away."

"Is your fucking uncle _Di-fucking-Stri_?"

"If you tell me that you just figured that out today, I'm going to piss in your coffee on the way back."

"Big deal, it'll probably taste better."

"Gross, man."

"Fuck you!"

While Dave was gone, Karkat watched on as Dirk answered questions, signed autographs, and posed for photos with the small group that had formed by his table. He sunk down in his armchair and pulled his hood over his head in a serious attempt to blend into the furniture. He'd been hanging out with Di-Stri for the last hour. He'd had Skype conversations with Di-Stri. He'd told Di-Stri to fuck off more than once in the past. He was dicking around in Starbucks with Di-fucking-Stri and Dave had no fucking clue that he was pretty much freaking out internally over the revelation. 

"I spat in it instead," Dave said a few minutes later, thrusting the hot coffee across the table. 

"Why?"

"Because I don't think they'll ever serve me again if I whip my dick out in public."

"You're the worst friend I have and Sollux has an injunction that stops him from setting foot in the New York Stock Exchange again for another three years," Karkat snarled. "They threatened to fit him with a tracking device if he even tried. What the fuck is that shit?"

"I dunno," Dave shrugged. "Some kinda fruit iced tea thing. It sounded delicious."

"Congratulations, you managed to pick out the gayest drink they sell."

"Nah, I asked the girl for no homo with my iced tea. I doubt a Starbucks barista is going to fuck up and give me homo when I explicitly asked for no homo."

Karkat looked almost offended by the plastic cup when Dave put it down on the table. He slipped his hood back again and went on ignoring his surroundings in favour of scrolling down his near-empty tumblr dash. 

He really only used it to get everyone off his back. They'd been harassing him for months to sign up and when he had, he'd realised it was more convenient to ignore all the bullshit Dave posted and just tell him he'd seen it instead of waiting for the deluge of links to appear in a Pesterchum window. He made the occasional text post but mostly reblogged things from GC, even though she didn't know what she was posting half the time. 

It wasn't like anyone gave a shit about his blog. What did it matter if he reblogged shitty images chosen by the same legally blind girl he was trying to impress? Sometimes she would text him when she got the alert email to ask him what the post was even about. There was always a delay though. Between her on-screen reader and Siri she managed to keep up, but he was always the first one to call her and tell her when she accidentally reblogged gore because she hadn't been able to see the definition well enough to know what it was.

Whenever she tried to voice-command her phone to text him a heart as thanks, it always transcribed the emoticon as 'less than three', spelt out in words. He never told her.

He looked up when he heard a cough. 

"'s nothing," Dave muttered. He took another sip of the tea to try and stop the scratching sensation in his throat. 

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"What's up with the rash?"

"I don't have a rash."

"Yeah, you fucking do."

"Where?"

"On your neck."

"Nah, I don't."

"Holy shit, I can fucking see it from here. It's on your face, too."

"You're imagining things. I think I'd know if I had a weird rash on my own face, dude."

"Fuck, I'm literally watching it spread right now, Jesus shitfucking Christ!"

"I don't think that was his name," Dave coughed. He tried to clear his throat but couldn't shake the faint wheeze that now accompanied each breath. "Blasphemy and shit."

"Fuck, Lalonde! Stop drinking that shit!"

"It's cool, man. I'm fine," he said. 

Karkat chose to ignore him when he descended into a coughing fit that left him unable to quite catch his next breath.

"Hey, uh, Strider?" 

Karkat had no idea what to even say. On one hand, he was talking to Di-Stri. _Di-fucking-Stri_ had told him his sneakers were cool and had offered to buy him a bagel. On the other hand, Dave was probably choking to death. He didn't know where to start.

"Sup, kid?"

Dirk responded to his question but didn't turn away from his conversation. Karkat groaned and tried again.

"Strider! Something's wrong with Dave," he said. "Like, seriously ill wrong, not he's an asshole wrong."

"What's he doing?"

"It looks like he's having an allergic reaction or some shit," Karkat said.

Dirk's response was immediate. He waved off his conversation and picked up his laptop before he turned around. He dropped it onto the table beside Karkat's and reached out for Dave's satchel. He picked up his own backpack from the floor and threw it down on the chair beside the rest of the kids' stuff, shouldering Dave's instead. 

"Watch our shit," he said. "You, with me, now. Can you walk okay?"

"I'm fine," Dave snapped, refusing to move. 

"You're the opposite of fine, man. It's up to you though. I can stab you right here in front of everyone or we can do this shit more discretely." 

"Fine! Don't touch my shit," he added, drawing in a shaky breath as he got to his feet. He let his uncle grab his shoulder and direct him through the coffee shop. He heard Karkat shouting something at him as they departed but his voice was drowned out when Dirk slammed the door to the bathroom closed behind them. 

"That shitty drink?"

"Yeah," Dave tried to clear his throat again but the breath caught somewhere along the way to his lungs. "Fuck," he swore. 

"Don't lose your shit now. You okay?"

"Yeah."

"You need me to do this?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Okay, you gotta lose the jeans though," Dirk said without looking up. He was already sitting on the closed toilet searching through Dave's bag on the floor at his feet. 

"Bro, no," Dave coughed.

"Dude, you've got about ninety seconds before you can't breathe at all, so jeans off and get up on the counter."

"No."

"Fuck, listen to me, Dave. Hey!" Dirk reached over as he slumped down to the floor, more focused on trying to draw in another breath than the possibility of slamming his head back against the wall. "Shit, okay, you're okay," he said. He stood up and slipped the Epipen out of its case and flicked off the safety cap with his thumb. "And we're going in three," he added, one hand on Dave's knee to steady his leg. "Two, one."

He jabbed the device into Dave's outer thigh and held it there for more than the necessary ten seconds. They'd never had to inject the epinephrine through denim before and he didn't want to risk not giving the full dose. He returned the used autoinjector into the plastic casing and shifted to sit beside Dave. 

"We'll get a taxi in about ten, fuck ambulances in the city," he said. "What the fuck was in that shit?"

"Don't know," Dave said a minute later, the wheeze in his voice already starting to clear. He didn't bother trying to move.

"Told you this shit was bad for you."

"Nah, just that one."

"Dude, no. I'm putting a blanket ban on you ingesting anything from this overrated corporation for the next six months," Dirk said. "You okay?"

"Yeah, doin' great, Bro. Be better if Cal was here."

"Yeah, your smart ass is doing just fine. Oh, shit."

"What?"

"Hold tight," Dirk said as he stood up from the bathroom floor. He'd been ignoring the knocking at the door since they'd walked in a few minutes earlier but he could hear keys and voices and suddenly it seemed like a good thing that Dave had almost passed out before he could get his jeans off. "Yeah?"

"Is everything okay in there, Sir?"

"Huh? Yeah, no problem. The nephew isn't feeling great, 's all," he explained to what he guessed was the store manager. "You think you could flag us down a taxi or something?"

"What?"

"A taxi," Dirk said, unlocking the door before the manager could. "It's no biggie, but we kinda need to haul ass over to the hospital sometime in the next ten minutes."

"Uh."

"No one's bleeding, it's all cool. A taxi would be awesome though."

"Do you need any assistance?"

"Nah, I jabbed him already," he explained. It was hard to hold back a sigh when the kid looked suddenly alarmed by his choice of words. "He had a reaction to something in that iced tea for little girls. He just needs to go in for observation."

"Shit's ironic, Bro."

"Nah, it's lame. Anyway," Dirk went on. "Taxi, and tell the kid who's probably still yelling to organise all our shit. He's coming with us." 

"Oh hell no," Dave said. Dirk watched on as he tried to lift himself up from the floor. He only made it as far as the toilet but that was enough of a victory for so soon after the injection. He slouched forward to rest his forehead on the edge of the sink. "Fuck, I hate these things."

"No shit. But hey, it's better than being dead."

"I wasn't gonna die."

"Dude, you denied the onset of anaphylaxis to save face."

"Yeah, and?"

"And you're retarded. Wait until I tell Rose about this one, she'll have a fucking field day," Dirk said with a laugh. He picked up the satchel again and threw the strap over his shoulder. "Think you can walk?"

"Nah, I bet I can fly like a motherfucking crow though."

"Then let's fly the fuck out of here."

"So is anyone going to tell me what the fuck just happened?"

Dave turned his head at the sound of Karkat's voice and raised a hand to give him the finger just as the camera flash went off. 

"I was too awesome. Had to leave."

"Bull-fucking-shit, Lalonde," Karkat growled. "Is this actually Lil' Cal or some shitty replica you haul around for impromptu photoshoots?"

"There's only one Cal, kid. Hand him over," Dirk said. He took Cal back from Karkat and returned him to the backpack. He had to rearrange the laptop that had been hastily shoved inside by the teenager, but Cal slipped back in easily when everything was properly organised. He took a minute to run inventory on their belongings. He put Dave's laptop back into the satchel along with his cell phone, double checked his backpack for everything, and made sure his own phone was still in his pocket in case he needed it during the drive across town. 

"Don't put that shit on tumblr," Dave said.

"It's already on twitter."

"Fuck you," he swore, finally managing to get up. "Okay, I'm good. You coming?"

"Of course I am," Karkat said with a barking laugh. "This is more entertaining than the time John actually believed I was from another fucking planet."

"Yeah, that was a great three hours," Dave agreed. He tried to push Dirk away without Karkat noticing but overbalanced and only caused his uncle to grip his shoulder more tightly than before. "Let go, asshole."

"Quit your bitching. As if you're not gonna be posting this shit all over the internet later anyway."

+++

The last thing Dave was going to do was post the entire incident all over the internet. There was nothing even remotely ironic about a Starbucks iced tea almost causing your demise at sixteen. Karkat hadn't stopped laughing at him the whole time he was forced to sit on a gurney in an Emergency Department hallway for observation. He was fine. He was going to have trouble sleeping for the next three days, but he was fine. 

He'd left it to Dirk to tell his mom what had happened. 

They let him go three hours later with a refilled prescription and instructions to stay away from a handful of possible allergens until his next regular checkup. He was only half listening. He knew the drill. He also knew that the afternoon was probably going to go down as one of the most hilariously awkward and lame attempts at meeting up with your internet friends in modern history. 

They'd dropped Karkat off at his building on the way back to their hotel. Dave gave him a fistbump and a reminder of where they were staying so he and Sollux could come over the following afternoon. 

Dirk had made a point of asking before he invited Jake around for takeout. Dave shrugged and said he didn't care, ducking into the bathroom to shower before dinner. It was only just going on five o'clock but they had to leave for the venue well before seven to be there on time. He knew his uncle was only asking in some kind of attempt to be polite or to do the right thing, but he appreciated the sense of pseudo-control it gave him over the situation - not that he would have said as much aloud. 

The Chinese food was there when he emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later, hair washed and blow dried so his bangs flipped properly when he shook his head to get them out of his eyes. Jake English was already there as well, sitting at the two-person table and fighting with a pair of disposable chopsticks. 

"Egg rolls, sweet and sour pork - you probably shouldn't go for that one since it was probably pineapple that set you off earlier, General Tso's, beef and broccoli, rice, other rice, other-other rice," Dirk said, sweeping his free hand across the table. "You alright?"

"Yes, just that it does seem to be quite bothersome to get these contraptions to cooperate with my hand," Jake said, dropping a piece of beef for the second time. "They must design them differently on the Eastern Seaboard."

"Just use the fork. And I was asking Dave but we'll run with it," Dirk said, holding back a grin as the flicked a plastic fork across the table. He'd had the foresight to drag the table closer to the end of one of the beds so Dave had somewhere to sit as well, and he did, dropping down cross-legged in front of the takeout. 

"Dude, I'm fine. Shit's happened before and it'll happen again. Pass the other rice."

"Other or other-other?"

"I don't give a shit, whatever's closest." 

"That's just the rice."

"Are they even different?"

"I don't think so," Dirk said. He slid one of the boxes over to Dave. "You coming later?"

"Me?" Jake asked.

"Who else?"

"Well I'll be friggin' darned if you were talking to young Dave that time," Jake said. He'd swapped the offending chopsticks out for the fork. 

"He's coming anyway."

"Oh, now that's just preposterous! He's a child, he's not joining you in a licensed venue."

"He is if I give him a backstage pass."

"Is that legal?"

"You planning on getting shitfaced?" Dirk asked.

"Nah," Dave answered his question through a mouthful of chicken and the other rice. "Been there, done that." 

"See? It's legal."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Jake said. 

"Better start believin', then." 

"Pshaw! Of course, if you say so it must be true."

"One hundred percent true, Jake. I don't lie about sneaking my underage kid into licenced venues to scale lighting rigs for a good photo."

"He _what_?"

"Just eat your beef. So, you tagging along or what?"

"I'd love to, mate, but it sounds like you've got it all sorted."

"I'm right here, you know," Dave interrupted. "And sure, tonight's like the one thing I asked for for my birthday but whatever, like, you probably haven't seen him for months. It's cool. I mean, my hand's still shaking on and off from the epinephrine but that's no big deal. We got any soda?"

"Is he being serious?" Jake asked after a moment of silence.

"Nah, that's just how he communicates. I don't think we socialised him enough as a kid. Not with people, anyway."

"Oh shit," Dave said, ignoring Dirk's comment. He picked up his phone and sent a message through to Roxy. 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 5:42 --

TG: hey mom you got home today right  
TG: remember to show paul my selfie  
TG: she needs to see my face  
TG: mom im serious okay  
TG: you need to show her and not just tell me you showed her  
TG: shes probably lonely  
TG: and hungry  
TG: dont forget to feed her

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 5:43 --

"What?"

"I had to remind Mom to show Paul my selfie so she remembers that I love her," Dave explained. He shovelled another pile of rice into his mouth. 

"Of course you did," Dirk said. Dave didn't bother to point out the condescending tone of voice he'd used before turning back to Jake. "You sure? It's gonna be a good one."

"Perhaps next time, chap. I have to be at the zoo by six tomorrow morning anyway," Jake said. 

"Looks like it's just you, me, and Cal, little man."

"Awesome. So do we have any soda or not?"

There was soda and Dirk took a can for each of them from the mini-fridge. The rest of their meal had gone as smoothly as he could have hoped, with Dave settling down a little while later. He'd started asking questions that Jake was happy to answer and he'd even forced him to look at photos of his lizard back home. He showed Jake the pictures of her in her little costumes, the ones where she was sitting beside an elderly Jaspers, and the best of the selfies he'd taken with her over the years. He scrolled through his phone until he found photos of his specimen jars and showed those to Jake as well.

Jake just nodded and listened patiently as if Dave was one of the elementary school children he dealt with on a daily basis. 

Neither of them realised that they'd had the conversation before, seven years earlier on Dave's ninth birthday, and Dirk wasn't about to tell them. That was a memory he was going to keep for himself.

+++

"You know the drill," Dirk said. "I tell you to do something, you do it."

"Yeah, I know," Dave replied. He'd swapped out his favoured gold-rimmed Aviators for a pair of red Wayfarers with a lighter tint so he could still see in the near-darkness. "Kick it, Barack." 

"Dude, lame as shit."

"It'd be awesome and you know it." 

"Probably. Get some good photos of this one."

"Why?"

"Because they'll make a sicknasty Art project next semester," Dirk said. He grinned from behind his own sunglasses and adjusted Cal on his shoulder. "You ready?"

"Hell yeah." 

Dirk walked out. It was the first large gig Dave had been to since Houston and he'd forgotten how loud a room full of fans could be. He stood back for a while, testing out the settings he'd chosen on shots of the audience. He started moving around a while later, closer to the front of the stage and then across to the other side. He stayed out of the way as best he could but there were a few times when Dirk looked over and he got a clear photo of him staring down the lens. His favorite was the one he took from up high on the lighting scaffolds, looking down from almost directly above his uncle - Dirk wasn't looking, but Cal was. 

"I got one more lined up for the night," Dirk said into the mic, well over an hour later. "Well, we got one more, but Cal's sitting this one out. See, the nephew just had a birthday and I didn't buy him anything so he's getting a challenge instead. You in, man?"

Dave just stared. 

"You fucking kidding, Bro?" Dave shouted. His voice was almost inaudible over the noise of a room full of people.

"Don't kid about this," Dirk said with a laugh. He was already removing Cal from around his shoulders. Dave watched as one of the assistants walked out with a spare mic for him. "Yes or no, it's up to you," he finished, brandishing the second mic in his direction. "I'll go easy on you."

Dave scowled and reached out to snatch the mic.

"Why bother?"

"Big words, little dude," Dirk chuckled again and handed Dave's camera to the assistant who had evidently been told to wait for the exchange. He walked over to the mixer and hit a few buttons to start up a new track. Dave vaguely recognised one of his own samples mixed in. "Ready?"

"Yeah." 

He stood back and waited for his uncle to start them off.

"It's been a while since I started out in this industry,  
Fighting off the bad publicity and all the scrutiny,  
To get to where I am today the C-Man always by my side,  
Helping me to forget all the shit that I tried to hide.  
You don't know the half of what I dealt with in my time,  
So come on, step up, and hit me with your rhymes."

Dirk looked at him expectantly as they waited for the crowd to settle down. It wasn't often that Di-Stri invited guests to any of his performances and he'd never recorded collaborations. No one had been expecting him to pull a teenager out of nowhere. Dave, for his part, was just running with it. They'd done this hundreds of times in the living room, it was no different now. He took a deep breath, and raised the mic. 

"Believe me, Bro, I know all the shit you dealt with,  
Living in a family where you put yourself fifth.  
Behind me, and Mom, and Rosie and Paul,  
Even though you just picked her up at a mall.  
You even put yourself behind Cal, man, who does that?  
Come on, you're like forty you gotta know that shit's whack." 

Dirk laughed and shook his head, waving a hand dismissively at the crowd in an attempt to calm them down. No doubt they hadn't been expecting much and sure, Dave's attempt was unrefined and he was obviously nervous, but he'd managed to prove that he was, at the very least, capable of holding his own. Dirk cleared his throat before heading into his next verse. 

"Your game's weak, kid, if you're sinking that low already,  
But shit man, get over here, and help me keep myself steady.  
I got all that arthritis in my back, shoulder and hip,  
Hilarious, ain't it? C'mon let me give you a tip.  
When I go to the stores they might call me Mister,  
But guess who's older, that's right, my sister." 

Dave couldn't keep a straight face after that. He burst out into ugly laughter and took a few steps towards the back wall in order to compose himself before he could continue. 

"Yo mamma jokes stopped being funny back in '96,  
I know that fact's hitting you like a tonne of bricks.  
But what's hitting harder is this one simple fact,  
You're going so easy on me I'd think that you lacked  
The necessary skills to win this shit,  
But whatever man, this is your bit." 

Dirk cocked an eyebrow but Dave stood his ground and just stared him down. He paused for a moment to think of something to say next, then raised his mic once more. 

"You want to play by my rules up here tonight, little man?  
I know that you've always been my number one fan.  
So you know what you're getting yourself into by saying that,  
Issuing a challenge that you're destined to lose, brat.  
But fine, we're here and the time is now,  
If you think you can win, step up and take a bow."

Dave had known from the start that he couldn't win. He didn't stand a chance. There'd been a time, when he was about ten, that Rose had been declared winner of that weeks' rap-off because she'd pulled out words that even Roxy wasn't sure existed until they'd all looked them up. His mom had won a few times as well. She wasn't half bad when she was drunk. It was all fun and games at home, but this was probably going to be his only opportunity to get a verse in out in public and he was going to make it count. 

"Nothing's ever been off limits when we rapping in the living room,  
But I'm wondering if the time and place right here and now's too soon,  
To get all this shit off my chest and out into the air.  
It's as simple as this, man, you've always been there.  
No matter what I said or done you've always come through,  
It's simple, Bro, but you gotta know that I love you."

It was a low blow and he knew it, but it had the impact he'd expected. Dirk paused for a moment and just stared at him from across the stage. He raised the mic to start his rebuttal, but the crowd was making too much noise and he waited for them to get the hint and quiet down. He tried again, with Dave's glasses focused on him the entire time. 

"Now there's a low blow if I ever saw an attempt,  
To make people think I'm some machine of contempt.  
But I gotta say we probably both underestimate each other,  
You might be my sisters' but I always treated you like a brother.  
This is it now, time to finish this song,  
But this shit between us, this shit's lifelong." 

The crowd started cheering but he held up a hand to them in the universal sign to hold on until it was officially over. He gestured to Dave with the other hand and waited for his cue. He wasn't making it easy. He stood there shifting his weight from one foot to the other, raising and lowering the mic repeatedly, and trying to look thoughtful. He knew it was over. Dirk knew it was over. Everyone knew it was over. 

Finally, Dave shrugged, then held up his hands to surrender.

"You win, asshole," he said with a grin. He went to leave but Dirk reached out and pulled him back with an arm around his shoulders. 

"And that's a wrap. Thanks to y'all for coming out tonight and for being a part of the little dude's birthday. Keep your eyes peeled for next years' tour dates and I'll see you all then. Thanks again and goodnight," he said. 

The lights dimmed and they both raised their shades so they could see where they were going. Dirk laughed into the mic when the applause continued through the darkness, giving a final thank you before everything was switched off. He pulled Dave in closer and pressed a kiss to his temple, messing his hair up with the hand that had previously been on his shoulder.


	22. [I9]: Cats and Kittens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things get a little bit sad but they work out okay.

**January, 2013**

When Roxy and her husband had first moved into their house in Upstate New York, she'd adopted a kitten from a shelter in town. He was only months old when she'd taken him home and she doted on him day and night. She named him Jaspers and let him sleep on her lap while she worked, gave him full run of the house, and repeatedly ignored the requests to lock him out of the bedroom at night. 

When her marriage failed less than a year later, she was glad she'd never tried to train Jaspers out of the habit of sleeping nearby. His soft purrs against her pregnant stomach had been some of Rose's earliest lullabies and when it was just her and her daughter living in a near-empty house, he filled the silence while they both slept through the afternoons.

He'd been through a lot over the years. They kept him indoors because a domestic housecat wouldn't stand a chance against a wolverine. He'd escaped once or twice, sneaking out through open doors, only to turn around and come back in when he couldn't make sense of the deep snow. He'd been on the receiving end of years of curious prods and pokes from young children, until Dave finally grew out of chasing after him through the house. He'd slept by the side of whoever was sick and wrapped in blankets on the couch, year after year. 

Rose had been the one to state the obvious. He'd been sick for months. He wasn't eating. She didn't want to be the one who said it, but no one else was prepared to take the leap. Dirk felt it wasn't his place to suggest what needed to be done and he'd told Dave not to step in, either. The boys sat back and waited for Roxy to make the call but she wouldn't, or couldn't. 

It was almost February when Roxy found her daughter asleep on the kitchen floor beside Jaspers and his still-full food bowl, her cheeks blotchy from the tears.

He was nineteen when they took him to the vet for the last time.

+++

"Hey," Dirk said. He knocked on Dave's bedroom door before he stuck his head through the gap.

"Sup?"

"What're you doing?"

"Finally editing those photos from New York."

"Awesome. Get dressed and meet me in the basement in ten."

"Why?"

"Because I said so," Dirk said, not even bothering to think up an excuse.

"Need anything specific?" Dave asked.

"The usual. Phone, your good shades, probably not sneakers. Don't get caught on the way down."

"Yeah, okay. Let me just finish this."

"No way, I've seen you work on that shit for six hours without even stopping for a piss. Meet me in ten," Dirk said. He rapped his knuckles against the doorframe and disappeared before Dave even looked up from his laptop. Ten minutes wasn't long, but it was long enough to find a pair of vaguely waterproof shoes.

It quickly became obvious enough why he needed them. By the time they snuck out of the house through the garage and sprinted uphill to the top of the driveway, any pair of Cons would have been soaked through by the slush. He threw himself into the passengers' seat of Dirk's Camry and waited impatiently for him to start the car.

He almost got right back out again when the speakers started blaring One Direction at him. 

Dirk just laughed as Dave fumbled with the volume control and hastily swapped out the CD for Macklemore. 

"Oh my God, why the fuck do you have the Kidz Bop album?"

"It's got _Gangnam Style_ on there somewhere as well."

"You know how you always told me to man up and be rad as fuck and brave and shit all the time?"

"Yeah, that sounds like something I'd say. Why?"

"No one's that brave," Dave said, tossing the CD into the back seat somewhere.

"C'mon, you're not even curious about how bad the auditory assault is gonna be?"

"Nope."

"It's pretty fucking terrible. You'll love it," Dirk said. They were out on the highway by then, heading towards Potsdam on the main road. 

"No way, man. Where are we even going?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

+++

"Just go!"

"Dude, no!"

"Why not?"

"Because fuck you, that's why!"

"Not a valid excuse, bro. Elaborate or quit your bitching."

"Shit," Dave scowled. "Okay, so me and Rose have the basic as fuck bedrooms and we have to share a bathroom like we're the help or something, right? But you've got the sweet ass so-called guest bedroom that's got its own bathroom."

"The point, Dave."

"The point is I'm pretty fucking sure you don't get dressed in your bathroom."

"Dude, your point."

"I don't fucking want to know if Mom does the same thing."

"So I didn't think this part through, whatever," Dirk said. "Just go in there and do something obnoxious to get her attention first. Problem solved."

"If I have to see anything that I really, really don't want to see, you're buying me those sneakers I want."

"Okay, deal."

"And a new set of pencils. Those are kinda for school though so you pretty much have to buy 'em now that I've asked," Dave said, one hand perched on the handle to his mother's' bedroom door. "Do I have to?"

"Dave."

"I'm going, fuck! This better be worth it."

"Trust me, bro. I'll wait out here," Dirk said.

Dave sighed and turned the handle slowly. He cracked the door open and heard the shower running in Roxy's ensuite.

"Hey Mom, get out here," he called, settling himself cross-legged on the end of his mothers' unmade bed. No one in their house ever made the bed. He'd had no idea that it was something a lot of people did until he was twelve, when John's dad had walked in during one of their Skype call to remind his son to make his bed. Dave had been too perplexed at the time to even laugh at him.

"Davey?"

"Yeah, who else?"

"Oh my God, baby, I'm in the shower. Go away!"

"No way this is awesome, you need to see this."

"Dave, honey, I know you think that whatever Paul just did is the cutest thing ever but give me another five minutes here."

"No."

"Dammit, baby," Roxy snapped. 

Dave heard the water shut off and and waited impatiently while his Mom made a show of stomping around the bathroom. Eventually, she emerged wrapped in a bright pink bathrobe with her hair wound up in a towel. She scowled over at Dave, who just grinned at her from behind his glasses. 

"Me and Bro got you something," he said. 

"And it couldn't have waited for me to wash the conditioner out of my hair?"

"Nah. He was getting impatient," Dave said, his grin spreading.

"Why?"

"I dunno," he shrugged, looking up to the head of Roxy's bed. "Guess he was getting restless."

"Wh - oh my God!"

The kitten had escaped his lap a few minutes earlier and was busy sniffing out every inch of Roxy's comforter. 

"We haven't set him up anywhere yet so you can keep him in here for a few days," Dave said. He leant back on one hand and tapped the covers with his other, which caused the kitten to dart back over to him to see what the big deal was. "You're supposed to do that, apparently. I don't know, I've never had a cat this small before. They told us when his birthday was which is pretty rad, like the actual day, so you can have parties and shit for him. Mom?"

"You and Dirk just went out and picked up a kitten?"

"Yeah. If it was a good idea it was totally my call, but if it's a bad one it's all on him. We decided on that in the car."

"You got me a kitten."

"We didn't name him. He's kind of blind in one eye but the other one works okay."

"You just went out and picked up a kitten."

"Yeah, Mom, we got you a baby cat."

"You got me a mutant cat."

"Dude, I didn't know he was half blind when he got all up in my face at the shelter and decided that I wasn't leaving without him. They told us after we'd already decided he was pretty awesome and then Bro was all _oh shit, you can't throw him back now just because he's got shitty eyes, I never gave you back when I found out yours were fucked to next week and back_ , the asshole," Dave explained, adopting the best imitation of Dirk he could manage. By then, the kitten had latched onto his finger with tiny teeth and he was trying in vain to work it free. Every attempt got him a swipe with claws that seemed laughable in comparison to the ones Jaspers had used to scratch at him in the past. 

"Do you think it's cruel to name him Mutie? You know, after the disability?"

"Nah. It'd be cruel if you put an eyepatch over his good eye though. The left one's the good one, by the way. We got you an eyepatch to put over the bad one so you could take cute photos and shit."

"Davey?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks, baby."

"It wasn't my idea," Dave admitted with a shrug. He gave another tug but Mutie refused to let go of his finger, so he gave up and flopped backwards to lie down next to the kitten.

"I know. But I also know that Dirk's standing out in the hall and he's gonna pretend he wasn't listening in this whole time when he comes back from the store with more litter in another hour and a half," Roxy said with a smile. "Now give him here so I can go show Rosie her new baby brother."

"Not the first time she's heard that one."

"I bet she won't want me to take this one back," Roxy said, carefully working Mutie's teeth off Dave's finger.

"Ouch, Mom."

"The teeth or the comment?"

"They both sting like betrayal."

"Perfect," she said, gently patting his cheek as she cradled the black kitten in her other arm. "Love you."

"Yeah, whatever."

"I was talking to him. It's your own fault for growing up and turning sixteen. Figure out how to go back in time so you can be super cute again and then we'll talk."

"Thanks, Mom."

"Anytime. Rosie! Rose, honey!"

Dave grinned as Roxy left with Mutie in her grasp.

He rolled off the end of the bed and followed her out of the room, accepting the high five from Dirk as he walked past to go back to his own room and finish what he'd been working on earlier in the day.

They hadn't known how she would react to them bringing home a new kitten so soon, but if her initial reaction was anything to go by, they'd made a pretty good call.


	23. [I10]: Dirk's Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dirk does a live interview on a late-night talk show. We'll say it's Letterman, for the sake of running gags.

**February, 2013.**

"Okay, let's have a hand for the unstoppable team of Di-Stri and Lil' Cal!" 

It was a good setup, Dirk thought when he walked out onto the set. They'd organised a second chair for Cal and everything. He held out a hand to greet the audience then made himself comfortable in the armchair nearest the desk while he waited for the crowd to stop cheering long enough for him to get a word in; in the meantime, he set the puppet up in the chair next to his, arranging the gangly limbs so Cal could rest his chin in his hands. 

"Cal's been asking about you all week, David. It's all I've heard from him. _When're we gonna see David_ , he's been saying. Can't shut him up." 

"Well, you two haven't been back in a while now. I think it's been over a year since you were last here."

"I think it'd be about that, yeah. Sorry man, we just got busy."

"I'll say! You've been working almost non-stop for years now, haven't you?"

"Pretty much. Cal, too. He works harder than I do. I mean, shit, he's all talent but I've gotta work for it," Dirk said.

"Cal's pretty much a staple in your act at this point, isn't he?"

"I'm pretty sure he's been the staple since we started working together. I just do what he says. He's definitely the brains behind all this. Brains and talent, that's Cal."

"How long _have_ you been working together now?"

"Well, shit, I don't know. We started a hell of a long time ago, I think the oldest part of him that's left is from '86. I made parts of him in my tenth grade Home Ec class. He's had some work done over the years, the fucker. Mainly cosmetic, because his first body was in fucking shambles, but he's had a few essential surgeries here and there," Dirk explained. 

His response was met with laughter. His answers to questions about Cal were always met with laughter and that made it relatively easy to start off interviews on the right foot. Everyone just wanted to talk about Cal and how he'd outlasted other famous puppets by years, if not decades. Dirk didn't mind so much. It was a good topic and it tended to keep the smaller interviews relatively impersonal. It was easy to get a laugh in when he was talking about the oversized bag of stuffing he called a best friend. 

Sustaining the laughter was a different matter entirely. 

"That's a long career for anyone, let alone a puppet. Twenty seven is getting up there in years."

"Sure is. That's why he's calling it quits after the March tour."

"Whoa, that's a big bomb to drop on a guy, Di-Stri! This March?"

"Yeah, the exact same one, David. We talked about it and we've been doing this shit for a living since about '94, in some capacity anyway. He's just getting tired, you know? It was on-and-off for a few years in the beginning but it's been a solid thing since late '95. We put out our first EP in '96, another one in '98, and were doing mostly live gigs in between to make ends meet. Fast forward to 2007 and _LOTAK_ and we all pretty much know the rest. We did a few more EPs in the meantime and then a few albums after. Those have been pretty popular," Dirk explained.

"I'll say! You're still having some chart success with _Puppetkind_ , aren't you?"

"Yeah, it's still doing alright. But the point is, we've been doing this for a hell of a long time now. We figured that after two decades performing together it was about time we did something else." 

" _We_?"

"You can't expect me to do this shit without Cal by my side, can you? I mean, it's a good time to do it. You know, quit while you're ahead and all that," Dirk explained. 

"You're not getting at what I think you're getting at, are you?"

"If you think I'm talking about retirement, you'd be right."

He probably should have given the guy some notice. As it was, he was floundering on live TV in an attempt to salvage the interview. Dirk had just thrown every plan the writing team had for the episode out the window.

"But your tour sold out, nation-wide, in hours!" The host said eventually. "You're at the top of your game! You realise just how big a deal you are right now, don't you?"

"I sure do, and I can't thank everyone enough for getting us through the years and for taking what was at best a pseudo-ironic joke and turning it into something real. That doesn't happen very often."

"Well, no, you've certainly been a one of a kind act despite all the changes that have happened in the industry since you started out." 

"That's part of the reason we're pulling the plug now. It feels like we've been around long enough to do what we wanted and a hell of a lot more. If we keep just trying to get one more tour out we'll end up doing them forever. I can promise you now, I'm already forty one and none of y'all will be paying to see a sixty year old white guy rap with a puppet," Dirk said. 

There was a momentary pause while David figured out what to ask next. Dirk hadn't given him a lot to work with and he knew that somewhere on set there were show producers losing their shit because he'd unexpectedly dropped what was probably the biggest announcement of his career on live television.

Dirk could already imagine the phone calls coming in from his own producer. He hadn't told anyone about his decision to retire. He'd been toying with the idea for months before deciding to just go through with it, but he hadn't let anyone know. The kids and Roxy would be watching at home, they always stayed up to watch in case he tripped and made an ass out of himself on live TV. He had no idea how they were going to react. 

There was no better time to do it though. No one could stop him from saying it if they didn't know. He couldn't change his mind later on and take it back. It was perfect. 

"Wow, okay. So why now? And what will you do with all that free time? Take up a new hobby?"

"Of sorts," Dirk laughed. "The timing feels right. Like I said, I've been doing this for a hella long time now and I know where things go from ultimate highs like this. I'm not Beyonce, I won't be popular forever. I don't want to go out and take up fucking pottery lessons or anything though. The tour's gonna take almost two months and I made sure it hits up most states, plus a few cities over the border, so I'm not about to just drop off the radar after tonight."

"So what's in store for you and Cal after the tour?"

"Honestly, Cal's getting put up on a shelf above my bed so I can look at him every morning and remind myself that at one time I made a hell of a lot of money for acting like a jackass. But me? I'm really liking the idea of spending more than two months a year with my partner. I can't even tell you how much I'd fucking love that." 

"So there _is_ a Mrs. Di-Stri then!" David laughed. "That's been a mystery to every single journalist you've ever worked with over the years."

"Probably because it ain't none of their business who _he_ is. But he's put up with all my shit for over seven years now and I think I kinda owe it to him at this point to just take up the offer and finally move in. Ultimately," Dirk continued hurriedly, "part of the decision comes down to the fact that seeing someone that important to you in three day blocks scattered randomly throughout the year starts to take its toll after a while. Staying in the business another five years doesn't seem worth it when you look at it that way."

Part of him was hoping that Jake had stayed up to watch the show just to hear him say that. But he was the last guest of the night and it was close to twelve thirty, which meant that even though it was only nine thirty on the West Coast, Jake would already be in bed. The other part of him hoped that he was asleep because there was a real possibility that he'd spit tea all over his iPad while he read the news over breakfast. It was always funny when he did that.

"Jeez, any other Di-Stri news bombshells you've got ready to drop while you're here?"

The host asked his question with a laugh and shook his head at the audience, encouraging them to join in as if it were all a joke. Dirk was always blunt in interviews and told things like they were. With the topics of family and his personal life aside, he'd always answered questions with a straight face and a strong opinion. He didn't drop brand new information on unsuspecting late-night talk show hosts and it didn't seem possible that he'd suddenly go from one extreme to the other. He'd already given up two pieces of personal information and that was more than he'd let slip in the last five years put together.

He shrugged.

"I've got a final album lined up that I'll be releasing in time for the tour. It's called _Prince of Heart_ , I don't know why, it was Cal's idea, but it goes up for online pre-orders in a week and I'll be dropping the first single on Tuesday. Let's see. My nephew's actually my son, so there's that, not that that's relevant to anything but we're talking bombshells here, right? Oh, and there's some exclusive shirts going up for sale that you can only pick up at these last gigs. There's three designs. The kid did one of 'em himself, plus the back cover and some inlay artwork on the album. That'd be why he's relevant here. He's a good kid but he shattered the iPhone 5 I got him for Christmas and the hell I'm paying for a new one, my ass is retired."

There was an uncomfortable silence after Dirk's speech.

"Okay, I've got to admit, I don't even know what to say here, Di-Stri. I really don't."

"Yeah, I'm sure you don't. Sorry, man, but y'know, since this is probably the last TV interview I'll be doing I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to go out in style. You get it, right?"

"Not really," the host laughed. He was at a complete loss for what to do next and no one on the production crew was coming to his aid. "I'm sure you'll be hounded for more information as soon as the show's over. Can we convince you and Cal to join us for the rest of the night?"

"We'd be happy to buy ourselves some time before the inevitable deluge of angry phone calls, David."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also wrote out Di-Stri's complete discography, mainly to help me keep the timeline consistent. If you're interested, it's [here](http://twoperfectlittlefreaks.tumblr.com/post/78351425599/to-accompany-intermission-10-di-stris-complete).


	24. [A3A4]: its just formalising what they started

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the family all get together, important conversations happen, and there is more mood whiplash than I've ever thrown into a single chapter of anything.

**July, 2013.**

When her uncle stepped off the plane and onto the tarmac, Rose was there waiting with an ornate sign she'd made with her brothers' art supplies. With a small smile on her face, she held it high in the air just in case he missed her in the already thinning crowd of less than thirty people departing from the flight. When he entered the terminal, he plucked the well-glittered paper from her hands and threw his arms around her so tightly that she let out a squeal as he lifted her three inches off the floor. 

He hadn't been home for almost two months. 

After the shock public announcement Dirk had made back in February, everything else had moved quickly. He'd spent two weeks in New York packing for the road, taking care of all the tasks he'd been trying to put off until the summer, and fighting to keep Mutie out of his bedroom. He disappeared after that. They saw him on TV and in all the online newspapers, and he called them every few days to fill them in on how the tour was doing, but they didn't see him again until May.

Three days into the tour, while he was still performing in New York City, he'd called Dave at one in the morning. The shirts he'd designed, all two hundred of them, had sold out on the first night. 

When the tour was over, Dirk was home long enough to recover and pack as much as he could into his well-loved '89 Camry in order to drive it across the country to San Diego. It had taken him over a week to get there and he hadn't been back to New York since.

When Dirk finally let her go, Rose reached out to take the sign back from her uncle but he held it up and out of reach.

"Nuh-uh, little lady. It's going in with all the others you've made me."

"Oh, God, you kept them?"

"They're in a box with all the other shit you two drew over the years. Dave's might be worth something one day but yours are just for sentimentalities' sake."

"Wonderful."

"Well, that and one time you drew yourself marrying Hermione Granger and there's no way that's not getting framed for your twenty first." 

"That's exactly the kind of gift I doubt I'll be able to hold out another four years to receive," Rose said. "Shall we go?"

"Nah, we've got checked bags." 

"We?"

"Yeah," Dirk turned to glance over his shoulder but Jake was gone. He knew he'd been on the plane. He'd made sure he was on the plane with him and they'd fought like kids over who got the window seat. "Where the fuck did he go? There isn't even anywhere _to_ go in this place."

Rose giggled to herself as she watched her uncle storm off to look for the man he'd lost. It turned out that he was lining up to buy a soda, deliberately making himself scarce because he didn't want to interrupt their reunion. 

"Wasn't Dave supposed to pick us up?" Dirk asked once they were all settled in Roxy's van a little while later, bags safely collected from the carousel. He'd talked to Dave about the move before he left and he was okay with it, or as okay as he was ever going to be with him moving across the country. Skype was great if you were going back to your kid at the end of a trip, but the fact that their video calls needed to be arranged around a three hour time difference only served to remind him of the continent now between them. "And where's your car?"

He knew that Rose had picked up on his carefully-disguised disappointment and could only hope she knew it wasn't anything personal.

"Once the school year was over I gave full ownership of that pile of shit to Dave. It's impossible to share a vehicle with your brother when you're moving out of home in another few weeks anyway," Rose explained without missing a beat. "And Dave's grounded."

"You're gonna have to come the fuck again on that one. Grounded?"

"It's a long story," Rose sighed, turning the minivan out onto the highway. 

"That could easily be summarized as?"

"Last weekend, Mom had to pick us up from a senior party when he dropped some acid and promptly had a panic attack because he thought he could hear the whisperings of ancient Gods."

"Holy shit, Dave," Dirk snorted. "How'd that go down?"

"He's grounded because he argued with Mom about it 'counting' as a legitimate excuse to get picked up before ten, not because he did it in the first place. She told him that he should have known what to expect."

"That's preposterous," Jake said from the back seat. "He could have been grievously injured!"

"He's fine," Rose assured. "I don't think it left so much as a dent in his ego. So now he's not allowed to drive the shitbox, which he doesn't want to do, and he's not allowed to watch television, which he hasn't in months anyway because he got a Netflix subscription for Christmas. Basically, all Mom achieved with her conditions was to ensure that no one else but her was able to make trips into town for groceries because Dave won't let me touch his car."

"That's one top-notch grounding he's landed himself in there," Jake said, perplexed.

"Yes, it's absolutely _top-notch_ ," Rose agreed with a smile. "I'm of the opinion that the video I took of him sobbing into Mom's shoulder will prove punishment enough should I ever need to use it."

"I can't tell you how proud I am of you right now, Rosie," Dirk said. "Couldn't have raised you any better myself."

"Yes, who knows how I could have turned out if I'd been left alone with my mother in the woods?"

"Let's face it, she'd probably be dead and you'd have taken her place as the resident alcoholic."

"Never," Rose said. "Oh, and don't ask about the kitten. He likes to sleep on your bed so Mom hates you by default right now."

+++

Jake couldn't remember a time when he'd felt as nervous as he did sitting in the back seat while Dirk's niece drove them home. There was the time he'd been waiting for the results of his doctoral thesis. That had been so nerve-wracking he'd eventually stopped checking the mail in case the results arrived and weren't as good as he'd hoped. There was, of course, the moment he'd agreed to take the job in San Diego because while it was his dream job, the kind of work he'd literally been chasing since the age of eleven, it meant leaving home for a new country as well as a new career. 

But while that had all worked out pretty well in the end, he wasn't certain the same would be said in future for the moment he finally met all of Dirk's family face to face and in the one location. 

He'd spoken to them all on the phone and on Skype over the past few months. He'd practically watched the kids grow up from afar, in stories Dirk told or in photos he sent. The lie about Dave being his nephew had lasted all of three months, with Dirk coming clean over breakfast one morning in Chicago years earlier. He'd known since then that Dave was his son, and had been witness to all the times Dirk worried that he'd made the wrong decision in raising him as a nephew. He knew the kids' interests, their friends, their problems at school. He knew exactly what to expect.

However, spending two weeks in their home would be very different to a Facebook album of photos from the latest birthday party.

Nothing, he was certain, could be more panic-inducing than the moment he'd opened the newspaper back in February to a double-page spread in the entertainment section announcing that Di-Stri was retiring after a nineteen year recording career. 

He was in the newspaper. Not by name, of course. Dirk had been so very careful over the years to ensure that his identity never needed to be revealed. But the mere concept of his existence was in the newspaper, under the subheading of _Stri's Mystery Man_ , and he'd been so absorbed in reading the article that he knocked his mug of tea over onto the paper when a colleague tried speaking to him. 

He'd picked up a second newspaper later on, guessing - correctly - that presenting Dirk with a framed copy of his retirement article as a gift for his retirement was just both ironic and thoughtful enough to make him tear up.

When Dirk had called him that evening, his intentions to feign ignorance were thrown out the window. His head had told him that it was going to be spectacular to give the illusion that he had no idea what had happened on television the night before. His mouth, on the other hand, found itself blurting out that _under no circumstances will that disconcerting scoundrel of a puppet be allowed to take up residence in the bedroom with us_.

"You planning to sit out here all day?"

"Huh? No, sorry, mate. Just got a bit lost in the old noggin."

"I noticed," Dirk said with a smile. He was standing outside the van with his head ducked down to see inside the door. Rose had gone upstairs ahead of them after parking the car in the garage. "You gonna come meet the folks or what, English?"

"Good gravy! Your _parents_ are here?"

"Fuck no. You'd have better luck with them than the kids though, I can tell you that."

"Pardon?"

"Well, you've met Dave and you just spent an hour listening to Rose attempt to psychoanalyze the shit out of me because I turned up wearing a hat."

"I can see her point. Even I've been telling you to let it go."

"Dude, I just like that hat. I'm not regretting the retirement."

"You've got to face facts here, old chap. They're designed for teenagers and crack dealers."

"So what, should I start wearing it backwards? I hear all the cool kids are wearing backwards caps."

"Have you ever even taken part in the great American tradition of baseball?"

"Nah, this far north the fields are snowed under most of the year and when I moved to Texas I realised I couldn't give less of a shit about baseball."

"And I couldn't really give less of a shit about the hat," Jake said. "Just as long as you know it makes you look as if you're in cahoots with the local crack dealer."

"Cahoots?"

"Yes, I don't think anyone gets involved with crack dealers without it being considered cahoots."

"An interesting proposition."

"That's not the only possibility. I'm sure if you put on about fifty pounds you'd be able to pull of the truck driver look, but I'm not sure if that's too much dedication to the act."

"You can't go too far in pursuit of irony."

"I'm sure you can't," Jake continued, reaching over to pull Dirk in by the peak. 

He promptly broke off the kiss when Dave coughed from his place leaning against the doorframe. 

"Mom! Bro's getting his mack on in the garage!"

"I'll give you a twenty if you fuck off," Dirk growled without turning around. Jake scowled at him for giving the worst attempt at bribery he'd ever heard. 

"Dude, you're seriously underestimating how much satisfaction I get just from being annoying," Dave smirked. "I'll take the twenty if you're giving it away though." 

"I'm not. Don't you have a grounding to finish?"

"I'm not driving the shitbox and I'm not watching TV. I'm totally within the conditions of my grounding," Dave explained. He waved when Jake leaned over to peek around Dirk's shoulder. 

"Egad! That's one humdinger of a bearded dragon you've got! She doesn't look half as big in the pictures," Jake exclaimed. 

"I think she's getting smaller," Dave said. He straightened up from his previously slouched position and lifted Paul off his shoulder so he could cradle her along his right forearm. "You're the animal guy, do lizards shrink as they get older?"

"You just got bigger, idiot," Dirk said before Jake even had the chance to respond. He finally moved from beside the sliding door of the van to collect their bags from the trunk. 

"She's marvellous," Jake said, awed. "May I?"

"Yeah, go for it. She's totally chill with being carried."

Dave extended the arm with Paul resting on it towards Jake. Her picked her up carefully and examined her from every angle, testing out her vision and hearing along the way. Dave just watched on because it was a nice change to have someone actually interested in his lizard, rather than having them just accept her presence. 

"Her coloring is quite phenomenal," Jake said. "I mean, the orange coloration is common but she's frightfully vibrant."

"She's on a steady diet of tangerines, bro," Dave smirked.

"No!"

"Nah, just fuckin' with you. As if I'd be enough of a dumbshit to do that. Hey, you wanna see her costumes?"

"You were being serious about that?"

"Why would I even joke about it? Bro's been making 'em for years."

"Well then, lead the way Mr. Lalonde," Jake laughed. He handed Paul back over to Dave, who set her up on his left shoulder before starting out of the garage. 

"Hey, dude," Dirk called as they turned to leave. "Don't make him sit through all the photos, just give him the highlights reel."

"You know her sideblog has an entire sideblog of highlights, right?"

"Just tell him when you've seen enough," Dirk warned.

"Oh, phooey. It'll be fine, mate," Jake said, laughing dismissively, following Dave through the basement and upstairs into the house.

+++

Rose would, in time, call it a moment of weakness. As a rule, she was collected and calm and maintained an aura of wisdom well above her years because she liked the way it forced people to take her seriously. Sometimes she enjoyed breaking her own rules in order to wreak havoc though, because honestly, being so solemn all the time did get tiring. 

The scream she let out when arriving downstairs was one of nothing less than genuine terror. Her own mother, her brilliant yet drunk of a mother, was casually examining a rifle over the kitchen table. 

"Oh, calm your tits, would you? It's not even loaded," Roxy said, looking over the weapon she was holding. "It's been sitting in a closet for like fifteen years, it's probably all blocked up with dust and shit anyway." 

"You've had a rifle in your closet for fifteen years?" Rose asked slowly, taking a cautious seat at the table beside her uncle, who seemed entirely unfazed by the situation as he worked his way through a cup of coffee. 

"Oh, no, hun. I've got five." 

"You _what_?"

"What, you think I didn't have a life before you kids?"

"Well, we know you've got an archduke from Luxembourg as a fiancé," she pressed. 

"Oh please, he's just a businessman," Roxy said flippantly. She turned the rifle in her hands and stared down the barrel, working out some dust from just inside with a rag.

"Mom!"

"Rose, honey, it's not loaded and it's in pieces, I'll survive," she said exasperatedly. 

"That's not what I meant. It's a very simple question."

"Give it up, little lady," Dirk said. "I clocked it up to one hell of a mystery like ten years ago, we're never actually getting it out of her."

"And you're okay with that?"

"I brought mine home and he's been stuck looking at the lizard blog for an hour," he pointed out. 

"Fair," Rose sighed. "Can you please not throw that thing around?"

"You seriously think I don't know how to handle this thing?"

"She's got trophies and shit," Dirk added. 

"Why is it on the kitchen table?"

"Because your uncle Jake adores guns and I'm being hospitable. We're going shooting tomorrow."

"Rox," Dirk warned. 

"Bro, it's inevitable. Give it up already," Roxy said. "But fine. Your uncle's _special friend_ Jake likes hunting so we're going for some target practice." She turned the rifle over and lazily lifted one hand to make air quotes to accompany the title she'd given Jake.

"Doesn't he work in conservation?" Rose questioned. 

"Yeah, he's always been pretty adamant about the fact that if a guy like him can hit a deer, it probably deserved to be weeded out of the gene pool," Dirk said with a laugh. "His words, not mine," he added more seriously. "I mean, he can't even go for a piss in the middle of the night without walking into two or three doorways, but I'd put money on him being able to shoot something around a corner. Go figure. So, you going or staying?"

"Going where?"

"Gun range," Roxy supplied. "It's just me 'n Jake so far but you can come along if you want."

"I might just do that."

"There's my baby girl! I'll teach you everything you gotta know before you move away."

"I'm already quite adept at basic self defence. It's hard not to pick up a thing or two when your idiot brother spends his weekends throwing a blunted sword around the garage, while your idiot uncle chases you with terrifying marionettes for transgressions as minor as forgetting to unload the dishwasher."

"Humor me," Roxy said flatly. She put the rifle down on the table and went to make another pot of coffee for whoever wanted any.

"Fine. I'd love to go shooting with you and my to-be uncle."

"Don't you start too," Dirk grunted. "I better go rescue him from the horrorshow of Dave's neverending blogs though, it's been a god damn hour and they're still up there," he continued, pushing his chair out from the table. "Do one that's about half milk and throw in twice Willy Wonka's annual sugar usage. Don't ask, I don't know why he bothers with the coffee in it at that point either."

He left his sister and niece in the kitchen and went upstairs to find the other half of his family. 

They were still in Dave's bedroom. He could hear them talking by the time he was halfway up the staircase.

"Hey," he said, leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb. 

"Sup?"

"This is all very fascinating," Jake said. "I never realized quite how extensive his collection was. It's rather impressive."

"Impressively disturbing, sure," Dirk agreed. 

"Check out the kangaroo joey on the third shelf," Dave said. 

"You guys still gonna be here awhile?"

"Quite possibly," Jake replied. "Is it actually from Australia?"

"Yeah, but I just got it online."

"Ah, specialty store?"

"Nah, Ebay."

"Interesting."

"Jake."

"Yes, Dirk?"

"You have to give him boundaries or he'll throw so much bullshit at you that you start drowning in it," Dirk said. "His entire goal in life is to be a little shit so you have to call him out on it when too much starts piling up."

"Hey, rude," Dave retorted. "I bet you always wanted me to pick up where you left off."

"You calling me a little shit?"

"No way, you're huge. You're just a shit of a human being."

"You should probably knock back a codeine now, broski," Dirk said calmly. "You're getting shitty and we all know that ends with you puking your guts out and going for a nap."

"Bro, fuck off. I've got this." 

"Case in point, but whatever. I'll catch you later," he said, backing out of the doorway to leave them in Dave's room a little longer. 

"Why the fuck would you want to spend your life with a douchebag like him?" Dave asked. He waited until he was sure that Dirk had gone before reaching into his drawer for the codeine bottle. He'd been ignoring the faint twinge behind his eyes for almost an hour and the last thing he wanted to do was prove Dirk right again. 

"Because you probably know better than I do that he's actually completely bonkers and isn't really a douchebag at all," Jake said simply, returning the final jar to its place on the shelf above Dave's bed. Dave dry-swallowed two pills while his back was turned. "Although, he did insist on purchasing a miniature armchair and having it upholstered to match the rest just so that darn puppet would have somewhere to sit and watch television."

"The last thing you want," Dave said, slamming the lid of his laptop before he spun his chair around, "is him throwing Cal at you when you're trying to watch the Ninja Turtles in peace."

"I take it you're speaking from experience on that one."

"Dude, I'm talking from so much experience you don't even know. He always says sneaking up on people is a Strider's special talent."

+++

"Dave, you've been standing out there for ten minutes and that's not counting the three trips you made downstairs earlier to ensure I was in fact in my bedroom. Would you either come in and ask your question or stop bothering me?"

"Wrong, it's only been seven minutes."

"In or out?"

"In," Dave sighed. He stepped over the piles of clothes and books on the floor to get to the far side of Rose's bedroom. He almost tripped up on a dictionary halfway but kicked it aside just in time. His sister watched from her desk chair as he pushed aside a pile of laundry to flop down on her bed. He reached up for a pillow and shoved it under his head, took off his glasses, and held them out for her to take. "I need some advice."

"Well," Rose said slowly, scooting her chair across the carpet. She took the shades from him and put them down on her bedside table. "My office is closed because it's moving to a new headquarters in two weeks but I think I can make an exception for family in crisis." 

"Thanks for that, by the way."

"For what?"

"Moving to New Jersey and leaving me here alone with Mom for a whole year."

"You realise we have so many open channels of communication that I doubt my attending college in another state will prevent you from annoying me no less than three times an hour."

"I won't bug you after six. Homework and shit."

"How thoughtful."

"You know me," Dave said. He shifted a little and moved his hands so they were resting behind his neck, supporting his head. "Okay, tell me all the shit you know about names before I change my mind."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean with all the shit you know about everything, you probably know a lot of psycho-shit about names."

"What, like how they're used as identifiers? I mean, they're ways to tell people apart from other people. Without them you'd walk into a room and not be able to select anyone based on anything but their physical features, or other things that you knew about them," Rose said. She didn't know where she was going with the explanation since Dave hadn't exactly made himself clear, but it was a starting point.

"I know that, tell me more about the first bit, the identifiers bit."

"They help to individualise people. Someone asking for Rose would have better luck than someone asking for the blonde girl. They make you who you are and while for the most part they seem arbitrary, with parents choosing names based on what they like or what's popular in the year their child is born, some are more significant. You know, being named after a dead grandmother or something." 

"If they're so fucking arbitrary, why am I here talking to you about them?"

"Because you're in the more unique situation where - oh," Rose said. "Perhaps if you told me exactly what you're getting at I'd be more useful," she added slowly.

"If a name's just a word you use to differentiate yourself from other people that doesn't mean anything unless you let it, why the hell don't I know which way to go on this shit?"

"Well, you just said it yourself. You're letting it mean something."

"Of course it fucking means something! How do you make it not mean anything?"

"You don't care. The general you, I mean. You, as in you Dave, do care. A lot. Why else would you voluntarily submit yourself to my so called 'psycho-shit' if not because you think I'll have the answer?"

"What do I do, Rose?"

"About?"

"Here," Dave said, shifting again to lift his hips so he could pull a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. He held it out and waited patiently for Rose to skim the writing, drumming out a steady beat on his chest to keep calm while she did. 

"Oh."

"You said that before."

"It's just a big thing to absorb."

"Not really. It's just formalising what they started like ten years ago."

"But you can see why it's a big thing, can't you?"

"Of course I fucking can. I've had that thing mostly filled out since last December but I can't do jack about it on my own because I'm sixteen. Bro needs to sign it and if he's gonna sign it, he's gonna read it."

"And you're worried that he won't sign it for you."

"No."

"Yes."

"Kind of. That's my best offer."

"Why last December?" Rose asked.

"Why what?"

"Why, last December, did you go to the effort of printing these legal forms from the depths of some government website?"

"Do you have a bank account?" Dave asked.

"Yes. I only got one recently though, you know that. We've never needed them before."

"Yeah, the cash economy from the Bank of Mom and all that. I use paypal though," he said. "Commissions and shit."

"I figured. But do go on."

"I don't have a bank account. I don't have a fucking passport. The only thing I've ever had with my name on it was my school library card. Until, y'know," he trailed off.

"Your licence."

"Exactly. According to the State of New York, I don't exist. According to the federal fucking government, I don't exist. They've got a Dave Strider. He exists. Same height as me, same weight. The same defective crack baby eyes as me. I only exist in the shitty backwater K to Twelve public school I've gone to my whole life and even then it's only because Mom lied to them when I was four. It's like I'm some goddamn reject Dave from the bargain Dave store or something. I mean, I'm him and he's me but I'm not him at all."

"You do know that Lalonde is a married name, don't you?" Rose said cautiously.

"Yeah, so?"

"So it's not our family name. Mom got married just before she finished grad school and she got her Doctorate as a Lalonde. Honestly, I think she kept the name when they got divorced just because she liked the sound of it."

"So fucking what? For ten years they told me I was a Lalonde and now anything else looks wrong," Dave said. "It's probably just shitty cosmic timing or something. It feels like I'm trying too hard to be him, you know? He calls it quits on his career and suddenly I'm not Dave Lalonde anymore, I'm out in the world as Dave Strider because I'm trying to rub it in everyone's faces that I'm Di-Stri's kid. I look like a fucking poser."

"But you always were Dave Strider. I'm genetically Rose Strider and if I'd been born a few months later I'm sure I would have been assigned the family name," Rose explained. She shifted on her chair as Mutie sprang up into her lap and curled up there, nuzzling against her fingers. "It's on your birth certificate."

"Yeah, on my fake certificate."

"What?"

"I was something else again when I was born. Bro doesn't remember and because of all the shit that went down the way it did, the original was replaced with one that has me as Strider with no mother listed."

"Huh."

No one had ever told her that. It had probably only come up once, in a conversation that neither Dave nor Dirk had spoken about since. She knew that her mother had asked about what Dave had been told, so that she knew, but all her uncle had said was that he'd taken care of it. Dave had passed on bits of the story to her, but there were still holes. He'd tell her eventually if he wanted her to know. She wasn't about to press the issue.

"Who the fuck am I, Rose?" Dave asked, turning his head on the pillow to face his sister instead of the ceiling. "Get your psychobullshit to tell me that."

She sighed, and took a moment to think before she spoke.

"You're your father's nephew and your aunt's son. You're Karkat Vantas's weirdly platonic bro probably for life and you're certainly not John Egbert's best friend, even if he is yours. You're the bane of every Art teacher's existence. You're the guy who broke Jade's heart because you rejected her based on her geographical location. You're Paul's mom. You're my baby brother, Dave, and you're as much a Strider as I am whether you like it or not."

Rose knew she was right. It wasn't because she'd spent years reading books and the internet, it wasn't because she has a sixth sense for people and their emotions. She knew she was right because for all his usual bravado, Dave had gone back to staring at the patterns of glow in the dark stars on her ceiling. 

One time, he'd asked her why they were there. She'd said that she'd had a dream about being trapped in space for a long time and that they were reassuring, because she knew that she'd been heading towards something good. 

"I don't like it," Dave said eventually, tearing his eyes away from one of the constellations. "It's fucked up, it's so fucked up. And it's up to me to un-fuck it up but that's bullshit because I'm a fucking kid and I didn't ask for this shit. I didn't ask for them to give me a fake name and make it who I am and then whoops, you're not really that guy. You're a different guy with different parents so you better learn to deal with it."

"You're rambling."

"I know," he snapped. "I do it a lot. Maybe you should learn to deal with that."

"If it helps, he will sign it," Rose said after a momentary pause. 

"How do you know?"

"Because look at all the shit he did for you," she said. "You ask, he'll sign. He might not like it because your legal name is the only tangible proof he has that you're actually his son and not his nephew. Not that he needs a piece of paper for that."

"Huh?"

"You look exactly like him, Dave. Uncannily so. You've seen photos of him when he was younger. He'd like to have it in writing because you obviously mean more to him than he'd ever let on, but he'll sign the form regardless."

"I don't even know if I want him to sign it."

"Which is why you've been sitting on the form for the better part of a year."

"Yeah. So to get back to the grand point of why the hell I'm even here right now, what the fuck do I do?"

"I can't help you with this decision," she said, almost sadly. "It's one you really do have to make for yourself because it's all about how you feel and what's right for you."

"Yeah, I thought so," Dave sighed. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, his toes digging into the carpet as he stood up. "Thanks."

"Anytime," Rose said, holding the name-change form back out for him to take. "Perhaps you should consider changing it to something completely different, like Optimus Prime."

"Yeah, that'll look awesome on college applications. Oh shit, we've got a prospective student named Dave Optimus Prime, fuck, let him straight into Harvard Law so we can train him up for international cases and to try war crimes so America looks rad as fuck to the rest of the world."

"Dave, you're rambling again."

"I'm just pointing out the most logical sequence of events for that one," he said, his tone suddenly switching to something lighter, as if he wanted to drop the subject so badly he was acting as if their conversation had never happened. "Hey, where is everyone else, by the way?"

"They went out for dinner three hours ago."

"Why didn't they tell me?"

"They did, but you were sleeping at the time."

"Huh, fair call." 

"Mom left money to order pizza when you woke up."

"Awesome, I'll go call Steve."

"Dave," Rose called as he went to leave the room. "Your glasses."

He stopped just outside the door but didn't turn back to collect the pair of scuffed red Wayfarers.

"You can hold onto them for a while."

+++

When August came, Dave started his senior year alone.

Everyone had left at the same time. Dirk and Jake had been the first to leave, in a hired van with the things that hadn't been able to make it into the car for the first trip to California. They didn't know if they were going to make it back before the holidays, but they already had flights booked for Thanksgiving. 

That had been a pretty hard day for everyone. Neither Dave nor Rose could remember a time when he hadn't lived with them in New York. As the years had gone by he'd spent more time on the road and back down in Texas but he always came back. He kept a bedroom and an office and all his most important belongings were in their house. Roxy didn't want to remember her time spent living alone with Rose as a baby. But unlike his earlier trip across the country, where a lot of his belongings had stayed behind, everything but the bulky furniture was going with him and for the first time, they all felt the permanency of the move. 

Dave almost asked him to stay. Almost.

He and Roxy had driven Rose down to New Jersey a few days after that. He'd been forced to tag along to help with driving and to haul his sister's belongings into her dorm. He'd also been forced to witness unnecessary international makeouts when Kanaya arrived the following day, until Mom had stepped in and pointed out that she and Rose might want to leave some mystery for the rest of their time at college. 

There hadn't been any doubt that when Rose started applying for colleges, Kanaya would begin applying for a US student visa. They'd been planning it since the tenth grade and the only issue to overcome was that Kanaya's mother expected one of her daughters to receive an Oxbridge education. 

Ivy League wasn't a bad second choice.

Of course, a personalised letter of recommendation from accomplished alumnus Dr. Roxy Lalonde had probably helped seal the deal.

Dave and Roxy had stayed for two days before driving home. Mom had insisted on multiple trips to Target to buy anything Rose had left behind or still needed, dinner with Kanaya off-campus, and taking them all on a tour of the college in a not-so-subtle effort to point out all her academic awards that were still on display. 

She flew out for Switzerland the day before high school started. 

He got the usual warnings about turning off TVs when he left a room, kitten-feeding schedules, reminders to vary his diet every few days, and too many hugs when he dropped Roxy at the airport. She didn't want to leave him alone so soon and for so long, but they needed her in the lab for at least three weeks and she had no choice. 

Dave drove himself to school every day. He bought his lunch so he remembered to get his daily state-mandated intake of vegetables. He tried out for the track team. He drove home. He stayed up too late pestering his friends and his sister about anything and everything in between working on a few art pieces, both for commission and for fun. He slept with Mutie on his pillow and drowned out the sound of ticking clocks in the empty house with headphones.

Two weeks passed. He drove into town to buy groceries with his mother's credit card. He stayed back after school every day for training. He took himself to his quarter-yearly optometrists appointment. He fell asleep on the floor beside his bed, too many nights in a row, in a tangle of headphone cords, the kitten, and art supplies. He would wake up the next morning, de-tangle himself, and get ready for school with Paul on his shoulder every step of the way. 

The weekend came around again.

When he walked back into his bedroom after scavenging the kitchen for a breakfast so late it was almost lunch, Cal was lounging across his keyboard.

He involuntarily screeched.

"What the _fuck_!" 

He caught himself before he dropped the cereal bowl from his hand and Paul from his shoulder. He quickly slid his breakfast onto the edge of his desk and turned to put Paul back in her tank, because he knew Lil' Cal shouldn't be in his bedroom. Cal wasn't even in the state the last he'd heard and no one else was home. 

He thought no one else was home, but when he turned back around from his terrarium, Dirk was leaning casually against the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest. 

"Sup, dude?"

"You just gave me a fucking heart attack, you douchebag!"

"Nah, you're too young for that shit. I just scared the shit out of you."

"Yeah, I noticed. What, calling ahead or some shit is too plebian for you?" Dave asked. He sat down at his desk and picked up his bowl of Lucky Charms. "Jesus, don't do that. At least knock or something, fuck. You're lucky I'm even wearing pants, dude."

"Trust me, you ain't got anything I haven't seen before. Anyway, I got a call yesterday," Dirk said. His arms dropped and he gestured across the room. Dave shrugged in response so he walked in and sat down on the edge of the unmade bed. He had to shove aside a handful of pencils first and while he was distracted, Dave quickly threw Cal across and hit him in the face with the puppet. "Watch it, or next time I drop in you'll find him in the bathroom when you go for a piss in the middle of the night."

"You know you don't just 'drop in' from California, right?"

"No, normal people don't just 'drop in'. I do."

"Whatever," Dave scoffed, talking through a mouthful of cereal. 

"I got a call," Dirk tried again. "An anonymous tip, if you will, that says you're having a full-blown identity crisis."

"I'll fucking kill her. No, I'm going to write this shit down and when she finishes college and wants to get some psychologist's accreditation I'm going to tell the board all about her breaching patient confidentiality so they discredit her before she's even started." 

"Harsh."

"She's a bitch." 

"Nah, she's your big sister. That's what they do."

"She pretty much tattled on me."

"Yeah, kinda the point. You don't even want to know the shit my sister pulled when we were kids."

"You're right, I don't. Get to the point, old man."

"Old man, huh?"

"Retired, therefore old. It holds up."

"I'm looking for a job," Dirk shrugged. "I've got a few gigs happening but they're not exactly time consuming."

"You know retired means you're not doing that shit anymore, right?"

"Yeah, I know. Some friends called in favours. I've rejected all the requests to go out on tour though. That shit I'm done with. A few days here and there I can manage." 

"Whatever," Dave said. 

"How're you holding up alone?" 

"Fine. Doc thinks I'll make it another six months without needing a lens upgrade, I made track, and I'm totally not behind on homework or commissions yet." 

"Nice. What're you working on?"

"A few things. Most of 'em are digital. There's previews up on Godhead if you really want to see. The shit on my bed is for Art though, we have to start working on something to keep in a folio for the end of the year that can double up as a college entry thing." 

"So you think you're gonna go down that route?"

"I might," Dave shrugged. "I'm pretty fucking good. Better at that than music, anyway."

"How much are you making?"

"Ten bucks for something I can shit out in an hour. Fifty if it's something I actually have to work on for a few days. Someone paid me over a hundred for a full-colour comic a while back."

"Not bad," Dirk said, impressed. "I've got something for you." 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Dirk brandished an envelope in Dave's direction. He leaned over on his chair, balancing his breakfast in one hand so he could take the slip. He turned back around long enough to put the bowl down on his desk. 

"What is it?"

"You tell me, kiddo."

"Are they pizza coupons? That'd be sweet."

"Better."

"What's better than pizza coupons?" Dave asked. He flipped up the back of the envelope and shook out the paper inside. "Dude, the fuck is this?"

"The by-product of your hard work, little man. Profits from your shirts and a fair share for the art on the last album."

"You're shitting me, Bro."

"Nah, you'll keep getting 'em as they come in. You've got the full shirt profits there, and the rest is only two percent and only from the last album, but your name's on the inlay so you deserve something," Dirk shrugged. He watched as Dave flipped the check over a few times as if he was examining it for authenticity. 

"You're telling me all this is only two percent?"

"Yeah. I mean, I hold all my own copyrights and shit since I do all the writing myself, but there's managers and publicists and shit to pay on top of general outgoings so I only end up with about sixty five percent but even that's fuckin' unheard of these days since everyone else has more people involved in the whole operation than I do."

"Dude, if what I'm holding here is two percent, what the fuck does your hundred percent look like?"

"Two percent for the quarter, man. I told you, you'll keep getting 'em." 

"Why?"

"Because you worked on a major piece of artwork for the cover, I'd be an asshole not to give up what's fair. I mean, yeah, two percent isn't much but you've got more there than my security crew got on the last tour."

"You don't have a security crew. You had that one guy who stood around looking threatening."

"Yeah, that's him. He only got a one-off check for two grand and he hung around until Houston was over."

"Seriously? Some shitty t-shirts were worth more than your fake security crew?"

"Well, yeah. Once you factor in the purchase cost of the shirt plus printing, you still make a twenty dollar profit on each one and we ran off two hundred of 'em, so you do the math on that. The rest is just sales profits from the second quarter of the year. Next one's due September," Dirk explained. 

"You're telling me that from now until the Earth is destroyed in some cataclysmic event, I'm getting four checks like this every year?"

"You'll get four checks, yeah, but what's on 'em I can't say. It's all based on sales. They're pretty consistent for a good six months then tend to drop off so I don't know what it'll look like this time next year, but yeah, basically."

"I," Dave started. "Thanks, I guess. I mean, shit, Bro. Fuck. This is a lot of fucking money, you know that right? This is a lot of fucking money."

"Not really," Dirk shrugged. "It comes out of my cut anyway. We'll just say I'm getting in early on all the times you're gonna ask me to let you borrow a fifty." 

"Dude, I'm sixteen. This is so much fucking money, what the fuck? How do you even get this much money?"

"Let me put it this way. The last gig of the last tour, the one in LA, was sold out and the venue seated about forty thousand people plus standing room. Most of 'em weren't quite that big but in the major cities they were close."

"So basically, you're telling me you're hella rich."

"Hella is probably a good word for it at this point, yeah."

"You didn't answer the question."

"Which one?"

"What do you even do with big money like that?"

"Buy something stupid, then save or invest the rest if you've got half a brain."

"Huh. What did you buy?"

"The very first thing or the biggest thing?"

"The first." 

"Wow, shit. Uh, it was either Taco Bell or an NHL magazine."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, I can't remember where I stopped first on the way home." 

"Dude, that's lame."

"My first check was for three hundred bucks. I made rent, shit was awesome. Biggest thing? After the first headline tour I did I bought my place in Houston. I've paid for all your shit along the way as well but that wasn't all at once," Dirk explained. "So what're you gonna buy?"

"Taco Bell would go cold by the time we drove it back here, right?" Dave asked, one corner of his mouth twitching up. 

Dirk grinned. 

"Stone cold, bro. So, you gonna tell me exactly why I've been summoned back to the house of Lalonde?"

Dave huffed and spun his chair back around to face his computer. He clicked around a few screens, then opened his top desk drawer and closed it again. He lifted his glasses up onto his head then removed them entirely, tossing them down beside his breakfast bowl. Finally, he put his feet up on the edge of his desk, pushed back, and tipped his head to look at Dirk upside down. 

"My name's on the inlay."

"Yeah."

"I did the back cover on my own but I helped your guy with most of the inlay booklet as well."

"Yeah?"

"I've got a copy. It's over there," Dave went on, pointing across the room to somewhere near Dirk. He shifted his arm slightly but couldn't find the exact location without looking at the scene the right way up. 

"I know, Dave."

"The booklet says Dave Lalonde."

"I know, man."

"I'm pretty sure we've established by this point that I'm not Dave fucking Lalonde." 

"Right," Dirk said slowly. 

"Even the check is made out to Strider."

"Yeah, it had to be so you could cash it."

"So which one am I?"

"Which one do you want to be?"

"I don't fucking know, okay? I asked Rose and she was useless. She said I had to figure it out on my own because her bullshit psychotrip didn't have the answer."

Dave stopped himself before he said anything else. Rose may not have had the answer, but she'd known that Dirk would. She knew that if she could get them together, under the right circumstances, the answer would become clear.

They'd both fallen right into her trap. 

She knew that Dave wouldn't call Dirk to talk about the issue. Dirk didn't even know it was an issue because it wasn't the kind of thing Dave was likely to bring up, especially since he'd already been pushing it aside for most of a year. She'd even waited just long enough that Dave was almost able to forget he'd actually asked her for sisterly advice.

She was going to ace her first year of college. 

"Dave?"

"What?"

"She pretty much got me up to speed already. All you gotta do here is tell me what to do."

"I don't know what I want to do, how the fuck should I know what I want you to do?"

"I dunno," Dirk shrugged.

"You said Rose told you everything," Dave snapped. "And you're the fucking adult here, you tell me what to do."

"Look, kid," Dirk sighed. He stood up and stepped across the room to lean against the desk. "I made the call the first time round. I'm standing by it because it was the right call when you were three. But shit, you're almost seventeen. It's in your hands now, man. I always told you to do whatever you want to do and be whatever you want to be. If you want to be a Lalonde, be a Lalonde. If you want to be a Strider, be a Strider. If you want to change your name to something else and dye your hair purple and go off on some fuckin' trip around the world, do it. Probably not until you hit eighteen though since you can't legally do jack until then anyway, but that's not the point. You're old enough to know who you are without me making the decision for you."

Dave stared. He didn't know how to absorb any of what Dirk had said, let alone process it properly. He got the gist of it all. He'd always understood the gist of things that he'd said even when he didn't understand the whole point.

Dirk watched as Dave shifted in his chair, moving his feet from the desk back to the floor so he could stand up. With Dirk slouched against the table, Dave noticed for the first time that he was starting to catch up.

"Yeah, so, I'm still starving. Do you want some toast or something?"

"Growth spurt?"

Dirk had noticed too, apparently. Dave reached for his glasses and slipped them back onto his face before he spoke again.

"Yeah. Mom left some of that fancy ass bread in the freezer, shit makes awesome toast."

"Yeah, okay," Dirk said. He picked up Cal from where he'd landed on the floor and followed Dave downstairs to the kitchen. He sat down and waited while the kid went through the motions of throwing the bread into the toaster, four slices, and filling the coffee maker with enough for two. 

Dave didn't say anything else until he dropped down into a seat across from Dirk, after he'd buttered the toast and poured out the coffee. 

"If I take Strider, I piss Mom off. If I take Lalonde, I piss you off."

"I don't give a shit, Dave."

"What?"

"I don't give a shit what name you run with. I told you, it's not up to me anymore. That ship sailed and the ball's in the other court."

"You just mixed metaphors."

"Which is metaphorical for how few shits I give," Dirk said. He swapped out the corner of toast crusts for his coffee and across from him, Dave did the same. 

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, seriously."

"Huh."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, huh. I thought you'd care more."

"Dude, my job was to make sure you stayed alive and content. I did that, but now you're kind of at the point where I have to pass on the whole being content shit to you. And the important shit like this? You just know when it's right."

"That's the gayest thing you've ever said."

"That's not even the gayest thing I've said today."

"Oh God, urgh, that's not what I meant!"

"Well think about your word choice next time, little man," Dirk said, laughing at Dave's reaction. He laughed harder when he had to dodge the toast crust Dave threw across the table at him. "Go and get dressed, you're driving me back to the airport."


	25. [A3A5]: i assume a congratulations is in order then

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone gets together for the holidays in the final chapter.

**November, 2013**

"Someone order a cab for two flighty broads?"

"Lovely to see you, too."

"Hey, I am nothing if not thankful for the opportunity to get out of the house for a few hours, and isn't that exactly what the holidays are all about?"

"Just open the trunk." 

Dave smirked from his place leaning against the side of the car and cut his Pesterchum conversation short. Over breakfast that morning, he and Roxy had flipped a coin to see who would pick up the girls and who would collect the boys later that afternoon. At least, they'd flipped for it eventually after fighting over who got to call tails for ten minutes first. Driving east out to the Plattsburg train station gave him some different scenery to stare at than the usual trip to the airport so he wasn't about to complain, especially not after he'd only had a half-day of school. 

"Aren't you cold?" Kanaya asked, eyeing Dave and his t-shirt. 

"Nah, it's like almost forty or something," he shrugged. He opened the driver's side door and got back in behind the wheel while he waited for the girls to finish loading their bags into the car. He re-opened the Pesterchum app long enough to tell John he'd be driving for a while, because when the girls' train had arrived, they'd been in the middle of talking about why it was the worst idea in the world to collaborate with Karkat on a programming assignment. Rose slipped into the passenger's seat beside him and Kanaya sat behind her. "Why, are you cold?" He tossed his phone down into one of the storage compartments.

"No," Kanaya said, arranging her purse and coat beside her on the back seat. 

"The car's got a heater, you know. I mean, yeah, it's a heap of shit on wheels but it's got a heater. And brakes, which is pretty fuckin' sweet since it didn't really have those when we got it. Well, it had brakes but they were as effective as bribing the border security guys to pick you up some Tim Horton's on their breaks. Man, they are stubborn as fuck. I even offered to bribe them in freedom dollars but nope, nothing."

"You drove the additional twenty five minutes to the border just to do that, didn't you?"

"Nope."

"And you skipped out of school an hour early to manage it."

"Why would I do that?"

"Dave."

"Daughter of Satan."

"Just put the heater on and drive us home." 

"You didn't even say hello, you asshole," Dave said, reversing the car out the parking space with one hand while he reached for the console with the other. "Shit, it's not like you've been gone for three months or anything. Wow, college is so awesome and so hectic that I can't even find the time between classes and the library and necking with my girlfriend to reply to my poor lonely brother stuck back home doing the same old shit day in day out." 

"I missed you, too."

"I didn't say I missed you, fuck. It's just basic fucking manners to say hello."

"How's Mom?"

"Batshit, when she's home. She's been out to Switzerland twice, London once, and down to the city a few times as well," Dave said. If there was a pause, or a hitch in his voice, he was thankful that Rose didn't point it out. 

Roxy had been working more since the beginning of the school year. Instead of rejecting trips or putting them off like she'd done in previous years, she was accepting every opportunity that came her way. It was different, but not unexpected. She sometimes got busier when she was up for a promotion, or needed more funding for one project or another and needed to convince investors to back her team. That was okay. It had been okay for weeks, even for the first month. 

Dave hadn't seen her until the beginning of the fourth week of school. 

He'd come home that Tuesday after training to find her sitting on the couch, staring blankly at a rerun of _Keeping Up With The Kardashians_ while she steadily worked her way through a bottle of vodka. It took him three episodes to realise they were watching recordings from the DVR because she wasn't bothering to fast forward through the ad breaks. He'd made two bowls of Easy Mac for dinner and thrown in a handful of shredded cheese in a piss poor attempt at making it seem like real food. Roxy hadn't noticed the difference. She'd fallen asleep on the couch by the time they were watching Dirk's old recordings of _America's Next Top Model_. He made sure she was lying on her side, threw a blanket over her, and slept on the other couch with his phone clutched tightly in his fist in case she stopped breathing. 

He'd been sleeping on the couch a lot lately.

"You were saying?"

"Huh? Sorry, the shitbox was doing that thing again."

"The rattling noise?" Rose questioned. 

"Yeah. Anyway, Mom's picking up Bro, his plane landed like forty minutes ago."

"Is he coming alone?"

"Are you shitting me? He's never gone anywhere without Cal."

"I was referring to your delightful stepfather."

"Seriously, no. Get it all out now if you have to because that joke? Not funny. I tried it again a few weeks ago and Bro threatened to knock me out and drop me in the woods with just a compass to find my way home. And not the directional kind either, the ones you use in math for drawing circles," Dave said. "Seriously, you'd think that'd be a solid goldmine of jokes but nope, he's a jackass. Jake's weirdly okay with them." 

"Interesting," Rose mused.

"I know, it should be hilarious but he flies off the fucking handle if you even try. The old man jokes still go down pretty well though. I mean, not _well_ , but I haven't had the abandonment threat for those. Yet." 

"In case I haven't said so," Rose turned in her seat to face Kanaya. "Please just tell me if you want to leave, no matter what time it is. I'll drive you the two hours back to the station myself if I have to to get you out of this place. It doesn't take much for it to go from slightly obscure family sitcom to horror show for the uninitiated."

"Two hours? Pfft," Dave said. He glanced down at the clock on the dash. It was just going on two. "I bet we'll be home by three thirty, defs no later than that, even after we stop in town."

"And what do we tell Mom when she asks why we're back so early?"

"That your train was early, duh," he said, swinging the car around a corner. He stopped at the next set of lights. 

"No train has ever been early the day before Thanksgiving. Even ours was ten minutes late."

"Thirteen exactly. Oh, shit, you've never had Thanksgiving, have you?" Dave said, suddenly excited as he glanced at the rearview mirror.

"Me?" Kanaya asked.

"Yeah, you. Man, shit's awesome. It's like the one day a year that Mom and Bro actually team up on something instead of taking sides," Dave said. "You've seriously been missing out."

"I don't see how not observing the holidays of the colonies is 'missing out'," Kanaya said. 

"Oh snap."

"Oh snap indeed," Rose said. 

"This is gonna be the best fucking Thanksgiving, I swear," he went on. "I mean shit, you're home, and Bro's coming home, and Mom swears she's gonna go easy on the booze because everyone's bringing someone home with them."

"Of course she will."

"Hey, what do you mean by that?"

"I don't mean anything by it, Dave. I'm sure she'll control herself in front of company," Rose said carefully.

"Damn straight," he replied firmly. He returned the fingers that had slipped to the bottom of the wheel to where they belonged, hands clutching the plastic tightly in the formal ten and two position.

"How's Paul?" Rose asked, deliberately changing the subject when she noticed him tense up. 

She'd had a feeling that their mother wasn't coping too well with both her brother and daughter leaving in the same month. She knew her own brother inside out, and she was all too aware that Dave would cover for their mother for as long as he could. Switching the conversation to a discussion of his lizard had been a successful distraction technique since he was nine years old.

"How's Paul," he scoffed, his grip on the steering wheel loosening slightly. "You follow her blog."

"The lizard has a blog?"

"Of course she does," Dave said. Kanaya raised an eyebrow at him from the back seat, but he didn't turn around in time to see it. "She's old enough, she's seven. That's like twenty one in reptile years."

"I don't think that's true. Some reptiles have exceptionally long lifespans. Compared to those, she'd still essentially be an infant at seven."

"Don't bother arguing with him," Rose interrupted, turning around in her seat again. "It's really, really not worth it in the long run."

"He seems so sure of himself though and it's almost painful to watch," Kanaya said, wrinkling her nose.

"You learn to ignore it. And him, with practice. By the time I was six I could entirely tune out the pitch of his voice at will."

"Impressive."

"Very."

"Okay, okay, I'm a prick, I get it. Put a CD on or something so I can tune out _your_ voice for a change," Dave said. It was only just dawning on him that while growing up with one sister had been bad, he didn't even want to imagine what it would have been like with two.

"Why do you have a copy of _Artpop_?"

"Because fuck you, that's why."

"That's the excuse you're going with?"

"I don't even have an excuse. Speaking of excuses though," Dave said, ignoring his sister as she deliberately slipped the Lady Gaga CD into the player. "You're gonna have to come up with one hell of a story to get Kanaya out of the basement."

" _What_?"

"Yeah, Mom's set up Bro's office for her. She got really excited. I mean, he's gonna hate it because she might touch something or whatever because he's still got his old mixing decks in there, you know, the broken ones, plus all the shit he drew on the walls because she wouldn't let him rip the plaster out when he left, but she set your old bed back up in there. She had to go and get a new mattress though."

"Well that's just not happening," Rose said, matter-of-factly. 

"It already did. She made me help move everything."

"It's not."

"I had to go into the fucking hardware store to get bolts to put that thing back together. The fucking hardware store, Rose. Me."

Rose gave an undignified shriek of laughter before she could stop herself and had to muffle the sound with the back of her hand to prevent Dave from pushing her out of the moving car.

"Is that _supposed_ to be funny?" Kanaya asked. 

"It's more than funny," Rose said with a smile. "How did you manage that?"

"I took the one we could find and asked for a handful just like it."

"And?"

"And I hauled ass outta there before anyone could pummel me." 

"One of the guys in his year works there," Rose explained. "Well, his father owns the store so it's more that he's forced to work there. Anyway, two years ago Dave was dumb enough to point out that it wasn't fair there was so much leniency on the guy, just because he's an athlete."

"Well it fuckin' wasn't, was it? They told me I had to get my shit together in math if I wanted on the state team again."

"Essentially, he's been going out of his way to make Dave look like an idiot ever since. Him even walking into a hardware store would be guaranteed to get a laugh when classes resume on Monday. It would inevitably become the start of hundreds of jokes, _Dave Lalonde walks into a hardware store_."

"Thanks, Rose, for making me sound like the idiot in that rendition."

"Anytime."

"That doesn't really happen here, does it?" Kanaya said. "I was under the impression it was exaggerated on television."

"Hell yeah it does. If I had to beg this bitch," Dave took a hand off the wheel to point a thumb at Rose, "to help me get my math up to a B if I wanted to keep running track, that asshole should at least need C's to play football."

"Yes, well, asking _this bitch_ for help certainly paid off in the end, didn't it?"

"We don't talk about that."

"We should."

"We really shouldn't."

"He hasn't dropped below a B since," Rose explained, looking at Kanaya in the rearview mirror. 

"Impressive." 

"Man, would you just shut up? I'll actually throw you both out on the highway if you don't." 

The rest of the trip was smoother, if repeatedly interrupted by requests for Dave to slow down. Every time he crept up closer to fifty, Rose made a noise of disapproval. He dropped down enough to get her off his back, until the road opened up again and he managed to creep up to almost fifty five before she threw him a pointed look. 

He made a big deal about slowing down for the turns and corners, almost coming to a complete stop for the sharper ones, but every time they hit an expanse of straight road he took it as a challenge to see how fast he could go before Rose snapped and to see what she would do about it. 

It wasn't like it was even a big deal, he argued. He was used to driving through slush to get to school since the roads were never plowed that well and he was getting pretty good at spotting the icy patches before he hit them. Besides, if they went off the road the snow banks were getting pretty high so they'd make for a nice soft landing. 

She threatened to throw Mutie into the shower with him when he almost hit sixty. He slowed down after that, sitting at a consistent forty six miles an hour for the rest of the drive home just so he could flout the limit of forty five. 

When they got home, he parked the car in front of the house and left Rose and Kanaya to collect their duffle bags from the trunk. He'd stopped in town to pick up a few things so he took the bag of groceries from the back seat and headed into the house ahead of them. 

"Hey," he called. "Mom, I'm home! Mom?"

"Downstairs!" 

"Where is everyone?"

"With me!" 

He dropped the plastic bag onto the table and went straight to the fridge. He took a swig of apple juice from the carton and took it with him in one hand, and picked up a bottle from the groceries on his way to the basement. 

"Got you something," he said, holding out his hand to Roxy when he walked into Dirk's study. 

"Oh, thanks, baby," she said, taking the bottle of gin from him and planting a kiss on his cheek. She put it down on the edge of the desk and went back to making the bed. 

It wasn't his job to point out that they already had more than enough bottles in the cupboard to last the weekend. She'd asked him to stop by the store for her so he'd stopped by the store. He knew that what he'd done was just enabling her. He knew she was drinking more than she used to, but he'd thought it was just a reaction to stress. 

It wasn't any different than when Dirk regressed to his teenage habits by chain smoking half a pack when he had a deadline coming that he knew he wasn't going to make, working through more cigarettes in half an hour than he usually did in a month. It wasn't any different to Rose locking herself away, forgetting to shower or eat for days at a time when she began to crack under the pressures she put on herself. It wasn't any different to when he sometimes spent days popping pills every few hours in an attempt to stop a migraine before it had the chance to start. Everyone had their own problems and their own ways of dealing. 

There was nothing he could do about his mom, except continue to be obliging and hope it stopped before it got worse again.

He leant back against the wall and tried to ignore the obvious sidelong glance Dirk threw his way.

"Hey," he said.

"Sup?"

Dave shrugged in response to his uncle's greeting. 

"Not much."

"Awesome. How'd you get that?"

"Where's Jake?"

"Checking out some shit in the garage. How'd you get the gin?"

"Fake ID."

"Bullshit. Everyone around here knows you're not even seventeen until next week."

"Fine, Sam from the store down the road lets me buy it because he knows it's Mom's."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"You have no idea how lame that is."

"Kinda do, bro. He won't sell me beer," Dave pointed out. 

"Good to know."

"There, _beautiful_ ," Roxy said, fluffing up one last pillow on the bed. "Still smells like sweat and Mountain Dew because I had an idiot man-child practically living in here until a few months ago, but there's not much I can do about that on short notice."

"Thanks, Rox," Dirk said pointedly. 

"Anytime, bro. Everyone back upstairs, I've got a daughter and her girlfriend to smother with love and pie!" 

Roxy snatched up the bottle of gin and hurried back up to the kitchen. If Dave was home that meant the girls were somewhere upstairs and she only had three days to spend with them. She was excited. She hadn't seen her own daughter since she helped move her to college and she didn't plan on wasting those three days.

Dave made to follow her, screwing the cap back onto his juice as he started walking. 

"Hey," Dirk said again, to get his attention. 

Dave stopped. He turned back around and slouched against the doorframe while Dirk leaned back against the edge of the desk. He waited for him to go on but he didn't, so he dropped his gaze and looked over the drawings on the walls instead.

Scattered between stickers were images of things that had come to mind while Dirk was working on a track and couldn't find any paper to write on. There were logos and lyrics, sketches that he remembered were important for some reason almost ten years ago. Dave's heights throughout the years were marked on the wall as well, between everything else. It was one of those things that, in retrospect, should have told him that Dirk was more than an uncle. Roxy had been marking out both his and Rose's heights in the kitchen for as long as he could remember. There was no logical reason to repeat the marks in the basement study. 

Eventually, Dirk broke the silence by clearing his throat.

"What?"

"Don't make me wait any longer to hear the outcome of your existential crisis. It's been like two months already, man."

"Dude, you just got here and I just had to spend an hour and a half with two snarky bitches in my car," Dave pointed out.

"You mean two hours," Dirk corrected.

"I totally mean two hours."

"Nice save."

"Thanks," Dave said. He unscrewed the juice cap again and took another drink. "I'm keeping Lalonde."

"Right," Dirk nodded, trying to look thoughtful. 

In September, during his whirlwind two hour visit, he'd signed the change of name form for Dave. They'd gone over it together in the airport lounge while they waited for his flight to depart, making sure that Dave had filled everything in right because if he hadn't then he'd need to print out another copy, fill that out, and post it to California, only for Dirk to sign it and send it back so he could submit it to the courts.

He made sure Dave knew what to do and where to take the form. He made sure that he knew it was okay if he decided to formalise himself as Dave Lalonde. He went over the form three times before he left Dave alone in the terminal so there wouldn't be any issues with it later on, if or when he decided to submit the paperwork.

Still, it was hard to keep the strange feeling of betrayal off his face. 

"Let me finish talking before you start crying like a bitch."

"Hey, watch it," Dirk warned. "I might not live here anymore but I can still whoop your ass into next week."

"I'm only keeping it until graduation," Dave said. 

The corner of Dirk's mouth twitched into something almost like a smirk.

"Really."

"You're smiling."

"Nah, that's just a twitch."

"Bro, that's not even a smile anymore. It's terrifying. Oh, God, I can see your teeth and shit what the fuck did I do to deserve that?" Dave asked. "Aurgh, Bro!"

The end of his sentence was muffled by a faceful of shoulder as Dirk moved quickly across the room and dragged him into a tight hug, trapping him in his arms. 

"Thanks, Dave."

"I thought you didn't give a shit."

"This is totally me not giving a shit."

"Funny how your not giving a shit is so similar to Mom's giving a shit." 

"Genetics, bro," Dirk said. Finally, he gave one last squeeze before he let go, when Dave started fidgeting in an attempt to work himself free. "You sure?"

"Yeah. Can we quit this weird feelings jam bullshit? I'm taking Strider, big deal. Oh, God, are you fucking crying?"

"Nope," Dirk said flatly.

"Oh come on, Bro, seriously?" Dave asked. He could see for himself that his uncle wasn't crying, but his eyes were definitely a little glassy. He chose to ignore the fact. 

Dave turned to glance over his shoulder when he heard a door slam and then heavy footsteps in the rec room. 

"You lads coming up for a drink?" Jake asked, coming to a stop in the doorway with one arm resting up against the frame. "Alright, Dave?"

"Yeah, I'm fine?" Dave said slowly, one eyebrow arching up from behind his glasses. 

"Nah, he means hello," Dirk said. 

"But he asked if I was alright."

"Yeah, but that's not what he meant. He meant hello."

"So why didn't he just say hello?"

"Because that's not how he works."

"Well?" Jake pressed, interrupting Dirk and Dave. "I do recall your sister mentioning that there would be drinks once the girls arrived and I can hear quite a few feminine voices travelling down from the kitchen." 

"I could go for one hell of a whiskey right now," Dirk said with a grin. 

"Do I want to know?"

"Nope," Dave deadpanned, ducking underneath Jake's arm to make a hasty escape. Dirk watched him jog up the stairs over Jake's shoulder and waited until he was gone before saying anything else. 

"Strider."

"What?"

"Strider," Dirk repeated, the ridiculous grin still on his face.

"No, English. You're Strider."

"He's Strider."

"Of course he is, you idiot."

"He's keeping Strider. He's going to start using Strider," Dirk explained, unable to stop smiling. 

"Oh, that's aces! I assume a congratulations is in order then, mate."

"Fucking hell," Dirk snorted. "I need that drink."

"Well then let's go and celebrate the fact your son is keeping your name with an unbelievably extraordinary amount of piss weak American beer."

+++

Over the years, Dirk had been forced to adapt to plenty of different sleep schedules. In college, he'd had to cram assignments, part-time work, and hockey into most days of the week around half a dozen hours of sleep at best. When he started performing he'd cut back on the sport just to fit everything into the day. When he moved back to New York to help out with his niece, he'd had to adapt to the sleeping patterns of a toddler.

He'd given up completely when Dave came along. 

For at least a year, he got by on naps. Rose went to sleep early, but she woke up with the sun. Dave would sleep later, but only after he was up half the night. He and Roxy had always traded off to ensure they each got at least a full night of sleep once a week. 

When his career picked up, he was back to working nights and sleeping through the day. Even when he was at home in New York it was hard to switch back to a more regular pattern, so he would usually be up to help get the kids ready for school and then sleep for an hour or two in the afternoons before they got home. It was even worse when he was out on tour or working in Houston, where he was never in bed before four or five in the morning. 

By Thanksgiving, he'd been retired for six months and, for the first time in well over a decade, had adopted an almost normal sleeping pattern. There was no way he was ever going to sleep through the three alarms it took to get Jake up and into the shower before five in the morning and he'd stopped trying less than a week after moving to California. He just got up when the alarms went off and made sure Jake did the same. He went and put the kettle on while Jake got ready for work, cooked some toast or oatmeal for him, and when the kettle finished he made a cup of tea that he always complained about but drank anyway. He stayed up until Jake left the house, then went back to bed until ten or eleven. 

"Wake up," someone said. 

Dirk actively chose to ignore the voice. He'd knocked back enough whiskey the night before that he'd slept right through until morning and he was convinced that whoever had woken him up was just asking for trouble. 

"Hey, get up. Mom says you've got a half hour window if you want to make pancakes."

"I don't," he mumbled. 

"God dammit, Bro, I didn't drive all the fucking way into town for bacon just so you could decide to sleep for fucking ever," Dave said. Dirk was almost convinced that he heard a foot stomp against the carpet.

"Too bad. Sleeping."

"You're an asshole."

"You know it, man."

"Fine, I'll tell Mom to do it herself and you know how shitty her pancakes are."

"Don't care. Not hungry."

"Dude, it's like ten already."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. The kitchen's free for another twenty minutes and that's it."

"You got up at seven on Thanksgiving to go find bacon?"

"Yeah, I had to go all the way into town for it so everyone better be grateful."

"You're a freak."

"Tell me something I don't know." 

"I'll be there in three minutes."

"Awesome," Dave said. 

"Hey, hang on," Dirk said, finally sitting up. He picked up his phone to check the time in case Dave was lying, but it was just after ten like he'd said. "Where's Jake?"

"Playing _Goldeneye_ with Mom. He got up like four hours ago."

"Why?"

"Why what? Why'd he get up at six? Fucked if I know."

"No, that's late for him. His first alarm goes off at four thirty. I meant why's he playing _Goldeneye_?"

"Because we left the 64 plugged in last night and everyone's sick of _Diddy Kong Racing_ already."

"Yeah, I don't even know why we bothered hauling that one out," Dirk muttered. He threw his phone aside and finally put some effort into getting out of bed. He got as far as the edge of the mattress before he stopped to stretch. "Okay, fuck off. Pancakes and bacon, I know. Give me a minute here."

"You're down to like sixteen minutes before Mom closes the kitchen to anything that's not pre-cooked and in a box until dinner," Dave pointed out. 

"Dave."

"What? I'm just saying."

" _Dave_ ," Dirk warned.

"You know she can't get the pancakes into shapes and her bacon just goes kind of soggy and holy shit it's nasty. You want some crispy bacon? Ask anyone except Roxy Lalonde because she can argue with a Nobel Prize winner and come out the victor but holy shit is she useless at making bacon anything but chewy," Dave went on. At some point he'd stopped directing his comments at Dirk and was just mumbling to himself. "And like hell she'll let me do it myself because then she thinks she's an irresponsible parent if she does but fucking hell it's impossible to choke down that nasty ass bacon without wanting to hurl, and let me tell you now, that's a tragic fucking waste of cured pork."

"What are you doing next week?"

"What?"

"Next week. You got plans?"

"Yeah, I thought I might go to school or some shit, you know? I started this whole education thing so I might as well finish it."

"You want to come out to California?"

"Why the fuck would I want to do that?"

"Because I miss you."

"Gay."

Dave darted back out into the hall after that. Dirk heard him take the stairs at a jog to get back down to the kitchen. He followed a few minutes later, struggling to do the mental math required to figure out just how many pancakes he'd need to make to feed everyone. 

The girls would probably eat a couple each. Rose would have two or three and he guessed that Kanaya would probably eat about the same, give or take half a pancake. He was pretty hungry and could go for a few as well, even though he'd just woken up. Jake would eat about six if they were there, especially since it was already close to the time he usually sat down for lunch. Roxy wouldn't ask for her own and would just steal bites from everyone else's plates when they weren't looking. Dave was in bottomless pit mode again and would just finish off the rest of the batch, regardless of how many that was.

A fuckton, he realised. He needed to cook a metric fuckton of pancakes, with an imperial fuckton of bacon on the side. 

"Yo," he said, walking across the kitchen to get started on the batter. 

No one replied, but he couldn't really blame them. 

Roxy and Jake were sitting on one of the couches, which had been pushed closer to the TV to compensate for the wired controllers they were using. They were in the middle of a deathmatch but from where Dirk was standing he couldn't figure out how many hits they'd taken a piece. Rose was tucked into the corner of the other couch, her favourite spot, as if nothing had changed while she'd been away at college for a few months. The only difference was that now Kanaya was sitting with her, curled up in a similar fashion on the other end of the sofa but still close enough that their ankles comfortably crossed over one another's. They were both alternating between looking up at the screen and focusing on the novels they each had open in their hands. Dave was sprawled sideways over the recliner, his legs hanging over one arm and his 3DS in hand. 

No one bothered to get up and help Dirk with breakfast until the sounds of bacon popping against the frypan filtered across to the living room.

"Morning," Jake said, clapping him on the shoulder as he walked past to get to the fridge. "You slept well."

"Yeah, half a dozen whiskey's will do that to a guy."

"Are they done yet?"

"Another five or ten."

"Batches?"

"Minutes."

"Right," Jake said, sitting down at the table with a glass of orange juice. "So, what's the plan of action for today then?"

"The plan is that I finish this, everyone eats, and then me 'n Rox start cooking dinner. You're banned from the kitchen after breakfast, by the way," Dirk explained. He flipped the current batch of pancakes out onto a large serving plate and started spooning more batter into the pan. 

"You're joking."

"Nope. No one sets foot off the edge of the carpet unless we say so."

"Well -"

"We've never said so."

"What if you need assistance?"

"We've got this. Hey, remind me later to book some flights."

"Where to?" Jake asked. He raised an eyebrow when Dirk picked up his glass of juice, but didn't bother trying to stop him. 

"Can Dave come over for a few days?"

"He's welcome anytime, mate, you know that. When were you thinking?"

"Probably Tuesday," Dirk said. He drank a few mouthfuls of juice before handing the glass back to Jake.

"Next Tuesday?"

"Yeah."

"We only get home on Sunday night, Dirk. We're back here in another few weeks for Christmas anyway. What about his next break after that?"

"Yeah, but his birthday's on Tuesday."

"And you've never missed a birthday," Jake sighed.

"Exactly," Dirk said. He turned back to the pan and flipped the pancakes. He rotated the bacon around in the other pan to make sure it was crisping up nicely before turning back to Jake. "I'll send him back by next weekend. He's got finals in a few weeks anyway."

"You know that having him over doesn't get you out of looking for some kind of regular employment, don't you?" Jake pointed out. 

"I'm looking."

"You're going barmy cooped up in the house all day."

"Hey, downloading _The Amazing Race_ doesn't mean I'm going nuts."

"It does when you download ten years of it and watch it in a month."

"Yeah, but how much have we learned about the world? You can't say we're not a hell of a lot more educated on obscure international festivals now than we were back in August," Dirk pointed out. He turned the last few pancakes out onto the platter and moved the whole thing to the middle of the table. "Hey, breakfast's up!" 

Roxy swore loudly when Dave paused the game just as she was lining up her next attack. She tried unpausing it but he dove over the coffee table and flicked the power switch off, then somersaulted out of the way before she could hit him with the TV remote. He ducked behind the other couch and rolled across to the safety of the kitchen. 

"Hey, pancake me, bro," he said from his place on the floor. 

"You're an idiot," Dirk said flatly, stepping over him.

"An idiot who's starving to death down here, maybe," Dave said. He made a grabbing gesture up at the edge of the table.

Dirk didn't bother arguing. He dragged out one of the colder pancakes from the bottom of the pile and dropped it onto Dave's face. 

Then he kicked him in the side when he tried to eat it without getting up from the floor. 

"At least fuckin' pretend you know which side of a table is up."

"Never."

He ignored him after that. It took a few minutes for Dave to emerge from his place under the table, and even then, he only popped up into the space beside Rose because no one was giving in to his requests for bacon. 

Jake and Kanaya were discussing their respective assimilation experiences. It had taken him a while to adjust but that had been a long time ago, when international phone calls were still expensive and more static than anything else. He'd come out to America alone and had been busy with work within a week of arriving. That had helped, he mused, being so occupied that he hadn't had time to think about anything else, let alone the drastic differences between California and Berkshire. It had been the little things he'd found most difficult, but in time those had become normal. He assured her the process would go by much more smoothly with easy access to online stores that could ship brand-name Jaffa Cakes to her door in three days or less. He knew of a very good online cookie store. He'd been buying a few packs of chocolate Hob Nobs every month for years. 

Kanaya seemed grateful for that information. She'd been doing quite well and agreed that being busy had eased the initial transition, but it was very much the small things that she missed about home. The electrical sockets looked strange, she still kept looking the wrong way when she crossed the street, and couldn't understand why the first floor was suddenly the second floor in buildings.

Jake agreed. He pointed out that he'd been a citizen for well over ten years on top of the first few spent living on generous working visas, but still occasionally looked the wrong way in traffic. Dirk just nodded his agreement and Jake elbowed him in retaliation.

On the other side of the table, Dave and Rose were arguing over the syrup. He couldn't understand why they only ever had the fake maple flavoured in the house when they could practically see Canada from the upstairs balconies. Rose disagreed, but Dirk was sure that was only for show since Roxy was listening to their conversation, ready to swoop in and point out that she would never allow Canadian syrup at her breakfast table. Rose disliked the imitation syrup as much as Dave did but there was simply no arguing with Roxy when it came to Canadian products. Dirk could understand it, but only because he knew the logic behind her reasoning. The kids didn't. Rose had only ever been told simple answers to questions about her father. 

Roxy had managed, for eighteen years, to avoid mentioning that he was from Quebec City. 

Dave drowned his pancake stack in the imitation syrup regardless.

"You did good, baby brother," Roxy said quietly, leaning her elbows on Dirk's shoulders from behind, while everyone else was absorbed in their conversations.

"Huh?"

"He's fine. I think he looks after me more than I look after him these days."

"That's not what I was thinking."

"Yeah, it was. He told me before that he told you about the name thing."

"So?"

"So you did good if that's the route he's taking. You guys are okay, you didn't fuck him up so don't start second guessing your shit now."

"Thanks, Rox."

"No, thank you," Roxy said, planting a kiss on his cheek. She reached over and snatched up a forkful of his pancakes and took off across the kitchen towards the fridge, laughing as she went. 

Dirk snorted and picked up a slice of bacon with his fingers. She was probably right, like always, about everything she'd said. He knew she was already a few drinks in for the morning despite the time, but that hadn't ever made her any less perceptive. As she poured herself a glass of orange juice, he noticed Dave watching her from his place beside Rose; he only continued inhaling his breakfast when Roxy started back for the table without stopping for the vodka first. 

Maybe he had done something good. He'd never really stopped to think about how his life would have turned out if he hadn't returned the call from CPS over a decade ago. He wouldn't have stayed home in New York for as long as he had. He probably would have gone back to Texas, focused on his career, called his sister for Christmases and birthdays, all while never knowing he had a kid who'd been thrown into the system. 

His sister and his niece would have been totally different people. They probably would have moved to Europe to be closer to Roxy's head office, only returning to the States for major holidays every few years. Dave would have never become a Strider, then a Lalonde, then a Strider again; he would have slipped through the cracks and never known anything like family, let alone the love and affection Roxy had provided him with over the years. He never would have met Jake, never would have moved to California, never been as content with his life choices as he was over Thanksgiving breakfast.

Dave falling into his life out of nowhere had kick-started a chain of events he couldn't picture living without. 

He was a horrible cliche, he realised, as he shoved the remaining bite and a half of bacon into his mouth. His entire life was a disgusting cliche wrapped in something not quite ironic, but if anyone had to be stuck with a life like that, Dirk was okay that it had been him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you all for reading and commenting and kudo-ing. It's been a long haul through this, including four months or writing and editing for me and no doubt hours of reading for you. It's not the end though, not really. We've caught up to real time, that's the problem. This fic leaves off last November and that's exactly where I'll be picking up in the future, give or take a few chapters that happen throughout 2013 to fill in some gaps/so I can write some of the funnier bits. 
> 
> I don't know exactly how long it'll be, maybe a few weeks, maybe a month or two. But it will be coming, and the updates will be different since they aren't pre-written yet. But they'll come, so stick around. Find me on tumblr, the address should be in the proper end-note underneath this one, or just keep hanging around here, if you want to keep on top of what's happening. 
> 
> Thank you again. I can't say it enough, I really can't. I hope you enjoyed this monumental effort and once more for the road, thank you.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was my 2013 NaNo project. I gave it a sideblog to keep all my NaNo posts off my regular blog and I'll be cross-posting it there as well. You can find it at twoperfectlittlefreaks.tumblr.com


End file.
